HARIDWAR: A year after extremists forced their Muslim neighbours from their homes in India, victims are living in despair as their tormentors seek to expel the minority community from what they consider a Hindu “holy land”.
Mohammad Salim shudders as he recalls the crackdown that erupted in May 2023 against his minority Muslim community in Purola, a seemingly quiet town surrounded by forested hills in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
“If I hadn't escaped that day, they would have killed me and my family,” said Salim, 36, a married father of three young daughters.
Salim, whose clothing store was looted, now lives in basic shelter with his family about 100 kilometres (60 miles) away in the city of Haridwar, struggling to make ends meet.
Rakesh Tomar, 38, is among those who celebrated his departure.
The hardline Hindu nationalist activist, based in the state capital Dehradun, spouts hate-filled rhetoric against a minority he feels threatens him.
“Uttarakhand is the holy land of Hindus,” Tomar said, referring to the shrines around the sacred headwaters of the Ganges River in the state, an area larger than Switzerland.
“We will not allow it to become an Islamic state under any circumstances, even if we have to sacrifice our lives for it.”
Only 13% of Uttarakhand's 10 million people are Muslim, according to the latest census in 2011.
Much of the hatred last year was fueled by “love jihad” conspiracies, which alleged that Muslim men wanted to seduce Hindu women into conversion.
They are crude but effective and widely shared online, poisoning centuries of relative harmony in the area.
Many were shared by activists like Tomar, a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP's nationalist rhetoric has left India's Muslim population, more than 220 million people, fearful for their future.
