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

'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.

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

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.

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.

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