Two incidents of crime and lawlessness, involving different communities, in Rajasthan have seen the BJP administration in the state respond with bulldozer action against the suspect’s family in one of the cases, inviting protests from civil rights groups.
Police said that on August 16, a 10th grade minor student from the minority community in Udaipur allegedly attacked his classmate with a knife, leaving him seriously injured. The same night, in Jaipur, three Muslim youths travelling in an e-rickshaw allegedly bashed up two Hindu men on a scooter in an apparent incident of road rage. One of the men thrashed died in hospital.
The school boy injured in Udaipur died on August 19. The assault on him had prompted a protesting mob to set some vehicles on fire. The administration imposed prohibitory restrictions on public gathering and suspended internet services in the city and adjoining areas. The suspect and his father were taken into police custody.
Chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma had sent a team of specialist doctors from Jaipur in his official aircraft to attend to the boy. The local administration ordered the demolition of the house in which the suspect’s family had been tenants for years, claiming it was built on forest land. The occupants were served a three-day notice to vacate, but the house was pulled down on the first day, August 17, itself.
Members of civil liberties groups have described the bulldozer action—now a standard practice in many BJP-ruled states—unfair, accusing the government of punishing the entire family for the alleged wrongdoing of a minor. They have urged the chief justice of the Rajasthan High Court to intervene, declare the bulldozer action as illegal and order the government to provide shelter and compensation to the Muslim family that stands shelterless. They also objected to the detention of the father of the suspect.
Udaipur collector Arvind Poswal said a few others too had been issued notices for encroaching upon forest land and that the action was as per law. He said the suspect and his father were detained primarily to find out how the boy had accessed an illegal arm (knife). “We have been able to check the violence and hopefully, normalcy will return to the city soon,” said Poswal.
In Jaipur, a mob protested against the road rage incident by blocking roads. Police had to use force to disperse the protesters. BJP MLA Gopal Sharma, who had joined the protest, later met officers of the administration. The mob dispersed after Sharma apparently assured them of help in securing a government job and a dairy booth for the family of the 36-year-old man who died in the incident.
While there seems to be no overt communal angle to both incidents, the angry response of the people shows the tinderbox Rajasthan society is turning out to be. At the same time, the administration’s bulldozer action in Udaipur could unwittingly serve to embolden the communal fringes of society.
In the assembly elections last year, the BJP had made a campaign issue out of the June 2022 beheading of a Hindu tailor in Udaipur even though the suspects were arrested within hours of the crime. Now, the family of the deceased tailor has demanded that if the accused owned any house, it should be demolished too. At a larger level, it remains to be seen if the state administration’s bulldozer action was a one-off response or will be the path taken in incidents in the future.
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