NEW DELHI: Dr. M Ahtesham Anwar hasn’t slept for almost a week.
The clinic that he works from, a small nursing home named Al Hind tucked in a corner of North East Delhi’s Mustafabad locality, has been inundated with patients wounded by gun shots and others grappling with critical injuries.
It follows three days of sectarian conflict in Delhi earlier this week which reportedly claimed 46 lives, with majority of victims being Muslims.
“The situation was so bad we could not keep a record of how many people came for treatment and how many we sent out,” Dr. Anwar told Arab News.
He said things got worse on Tuesday when several youngsters were brought in with critical injuries.
Despite the limitation of space and trained staff, Dr. Anwar says his team tried their best to provide first aid.
“Officials blocked the exit road of Mustafabad, and ambulances were neither allowed to enter or exit the area for almost 24 hours. This cost some lives which could have been saved,” he said.
Trouble began on February 23 when a group of Muslims began protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and were attacked by a Hindu mob in east Delhi.
The legislation seeks to provide citizenship to minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, but excludes Muslims.
India’s Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the CAA is meant to help persecuted minorities, but critics aren’t convinced.
The CAA is seen by many as anti-Muslim and has raised concerns that when the Indian government goes ahead with its National Register of Citizens (NRC), many from the Muslim minority population will be rendered stateless.
“I have lost everything, my lifelong investment in the shop, my peace of mind and sense of certainty,” Rais Ahmad, whose electronic rickshaw showroom was gutted by a mob in the BHajjanpura area, told Arab News, adding that the incident has made him question his faith in the administration.
“I lost around $60,000 in this carnage. It was a well-planned conspiracy... We have lost trust in the government and police,” he said.
India has a history of communal clashes dating back to its independence in 1947 from the British colonial rule. However, Delhi-based political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay predicts the situation is only going to get worse.
“I don’t see any let up by the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in whipping up majoritarian passion across the country and such conflict might be repeated in other places where the protests against the citizenship legislation is going on,” Mukhopadhyay told Arab News, adding that polarization seems to be the only priority for the government.
“The BJP thinks that nothing beyond polarization is going to work for them. They are clueless how to bring the economy back on track. Only thing that is going to work for them is to divide people on the lines of religious identity and consolidate Hindu votes,” he said.
