‘Shouted slogans, threw stones, and set fire’: Muslim ex-FM home attacked in India

Hindu extremists have attacked and set fire to the home of a former Indian foreign minister (FM), police say, in the latest incident of religious violence. Critics say religious violence has increased under Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, reports Al-Jazeera.

Salman Khurshid, a Muslim from the Opposition Congress party, published a book in which he compared the kind of Hindu nationalism that has grown under Modi to “extremist groups” such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS).

A mob of about 20 people from an extremist local Hindu group massed outside Khurshid’s house near the northern city of Nainital on Monday.

“They shouted slogans, threw stones, broke several windows, ransacked [the entry] and set fire [to a door],” said a local police chief Jagdish Chandra.

They vandalised his house because he compared Hindutva terrorists with ISIS. Guess they just proved his point @salman7khurshid https://t.co/laR1dDr5eF

— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) November 15, 2021

Khurshid posted images of the aftermath of the attack on social media, and wrote, “Shame is too ineffective a word.”

“I hoped to open these doors to my friends who have left this calling card. Am I still wrong to say this cannot be Hinduism?” he added.

https://t.co/olsAmUzebQ

— Salman Khurshid (@salman7khurshid) November 15, 2021

Activists say that religious minorities in Hindu-majority India have faced increased levels of discrimination and violence since Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.