Inter-community violence in New Delhi has already claimed the lives of twenty people, according to an update on Wednesday, residents of the Indian capital fear another deadly day.
Clashes between supporters and opponents of a controversial citizenship law deemed discriminatory against Muslims by its detractors have degenerated into community clashes between Hindus and Muslims. Rioters armed with stones, sabers and sometimes even pistols, have been wreaking havoc and terror since Sunday in peripheral Muslim-majority areas in the northeast of the megalopolis, some ten kilometers from the center.
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The main hospital in the area recorded four additional deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total death toll to twenty since Monday, one of its officials told AFP. 150 people were injured, ten of whom were in critical condition on Wednesday.
In numerous incidents reported by the Indian press, Hindu armed groups have attacked places and people identified as Muslim. Videos show bands shouting " Jai Shri Ram " (" Long live the god Ram ").
For Tuesday evening, after a particularly deadly day, local police reported sporadic episodes of violence in the district concerned. " We have had a lot of panic calls but we have not received any information about the violence except for one particular neighborhood, " Alok Kumar, an eastern police official, told AFP. from Delhi.
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Outbreak of violence during Donald Trump state visit
Fearful for their lives, many migrant workers abandoned their homes to return to the safety of their village of origin, said an AFP journalist on Tuesday evening. " There is no work (...) It is better to leave than to stay here. Why would we want to die here? "Lamented a tailor on the way to his village in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh. “ People kill each other. Bullets are fired, "he added.
The outbreak of violence erupted during the state visit to India by President Donald Trump, which ended on Tuesday with talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. The Hindu nationalist leader has been confronted since December with a vast movement of protest against new legislation which facilitates the granting of Indian citizenship to refugees, provided that they are not Muslims.
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This text crystallized the fears of the Muslim minority to be relegated to the rank of second class citizens, in this nation where Hindus represent 80% of the population. The law has sparked the biggest protests in the South Asian country since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.