Mob Mentality

How the Modi government fuels a dangerous vigilantism

- HARTOSH SINGH BAL

On 11 August, three journalists from The Caravan were following up on a story they had recently reported from northeast Delhi. Two Muslim women and a teenager had stated that they were sexually harassed while attempting to lodge a complaint at the Bhajanpura Police Station. The complaint was about a Hindutva mob—drawn from local residents of the area—that had marched through the neighbourhood, raising communal slogans to celebrate the bhoomi poojan for the construction of the Ram temple, which took place in Ayodhya on 5 August. Instead of registering a first-investigation report, the women told the reporters, the police assaulted them. After speaking to the complainants again for the follow-up story, the reporters had stopped to take photographs of a street adorned with saffron flags.