NEW DELHI: Dozens of people, many from Hindu right-wing groups, were arrested on Friday in India for disrupting Muslim prayer gatherings, local media reported, in the latest sign of growing religious tensions in the country.
Hindu groups have been pressuring authorities for weeks in the northern city of Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi to stop Muslims from offering Friday prayers in open spaces.
On Friday police deployed several hundred extra personnel and arrested at least 30 people as crowds of locals and Hindu groups chanted slogans, local media reported.
Pundits have blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-patriot Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of abusing minorities, including India’s 200-million-in number Muslim populace.
Modi’s administration rejects having a Hindu plan and demands that individuals of all religions have equivalent privileges. Haryana state, of which Gurgaon — additionally called Gurugram — is the capital, is administered by the BJP.
This isn’t whenever a particularly occurrence first has been accounted for in the city, home to scores of worldwide organizations.
In 2018, numerous from the larger part Hindu people group brought up comparable criticisms regarding Muslims asking in the open. Region authorities intervened between the networks and recognized around 35 open spaces for Muslims to offer Friday supplications.
A considerable lot of those confined on Friday held up bulletins that read “Gurgaon organization, awaken from your rest”, NDTV TV station announced.
Pictures via online media showed a gathering of generally exposed individuals requesting the supplications be halted. Others recited “Jai Shri Ram”, an energizing weep for Hindu patriots.
Pressures were intense additionally in pieces of northeastern Tripura state on Friday after a series of assaults against minority Muslims, seen as counter for the brutality against Hindus in adjoining Bangladesh recently.
State specialists conveyed police and paramilitary soldiers and restricted the gathering of in excess of five individuals in regions where assaults were accounted for. Police said somewhere around one mosque, a few shops and homes having a place with Muslims in the northern piece of the state had been vandalized since Tuesday.
“A few agitators are never going to budge on upsetting harmony and shared agreement in Tripura,” said Senior Police Officer Bhanupada Chakraborty.
