By Naushad Mallick, for Muslim Mirror,
Nawada, August 12: For last 48 hours, Nawada town, about 150 kms from state capital Patna, has witnessed bloody violence between groups of two communities leading to death of two persons so far. The communal clashes started here on Saturday and dozens of shops owned by the minority community have since been looted and burnt to ashes. After the death of a minority youth today, curfew was clamped in entire Nawada town. It is the sixth communal riot in Bihar since chief minister Nitish Kumar parted ways with ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last month.
Today’s violence started with a group of anti-social elements beat up a Muslim family who was coming to Nawada town from Hathua area on the outskirt of the city. They were attacked near Shobh Mandir leading to stone pelting by a group of minority community on the majority community. In retaliation, a big mob of the majority community, armed with firearms, came up from the Bundelkhand locality and attacked on Moghlakhar locality dominated by the minority community. In fierce stone pelting on either side several people were wounded. During the clashes, gunshots were fired from the majority community resulting in the death of one Md. Iqbal son of Shamsul Haque. What is interesting is the clashes and gunfire happened in the presence of the police and the battlefield was at stone’s throw from the police station. Soon after the incident, the district administration clamped curfew in areas that fall under police stations of Nawada town, Mufassil and Sadar.
Locals said the curfew has virtually imprisoned the minority areas and taking benefit of that, shops of minority community were looted and burnt in majority areas.
The clashes started on Saturday, a day after Eid, when some Muslim youths objected to the presence of burqa-clad Muslim girls at Baba ka Dhaba, owned by a Hindu, on the outskirts of the Nawada town. The youths attacked the dhaba and damaged the furniture. Some of the youths were captured by the people of the majority community who had gathered there by then. Then a bigger group of minority people reached the dhaba to secure release of the captured youths, and this resulted into clashes and arson at large scale. Several shops of Muslims were burned down and when the police were trying to control the rampaging mob, one majority youth tried to snatch the gun of a policeman, forcing the police to open fire leading to death of the youth from the majority community. To control the situation curfew was clamped for two hours. However, the situation worsened today again.
It is said Nawada is witnessing sixth communal violence of the state in six weeks since Nitish Kumar snapped 17-year-alliance with BJP in the wake of the appointment of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the poll campaign chief for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The eruption of the communal violence in the state is being attributed to this development. People in the violence affected areas in Nawada say the mob of the majority community was making slogans in favor of Narendra Modi and against Nitish Kumar.
“There seems to be an attempt to create an atmosphere of intolerance. I would like to appeal to all political parties and everyone else to help in maintaining peace,” Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said today.