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At least nine bulldozers rolled into the streets of Jahangirpuri in Delhi on Wednesday morning and pounded the entrance of a mosque, destroying the outer gate and staircase leading into it despite there being several people still inside.
The bulldozers, flanked by a heavy deployment of police and military forces, razed dozens of homes and commercial structures without giving prior notice to the owners, who begged authorities to give them some time to at least gather their belongings. These requests were ignored.
Residents in this crowded neighbourhood in the northern part of the capital say the destruction was ordered by local authorities to punish them after clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the area during a religious procession at the weekend, and that the majority of the destroyed properties belonged to Muslims.
The authorities say the structures had been built illegally and reject any link to Saturday’s communal violence, but the incident has polarised opinion online in India and there is particular outrage that the demolition drive continued for some time after an intervention by the Supreme Court.
When the bulldozers finally did stop it was outside a Hindu temple in the same block, just 50m from the mosque.
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“Where is the justice?” asked Sayeda Biwi, the owner of a partially-demolished shop two doors from the temple. “They have broken the mosque but did not even touch the temple.
“If there was any justice in this country then they would have flattened all the structures and not singled out one community,” the busy shopkeeper told The Independent as she handed out water bottles and beverages to policemen during the scorching heat of Delhi’s late spring.
These policemen, she said, abused her, detained her husband briefly when he questioned the alleged bias, and oversaw the demolition of the face of her shop.
“We were trying to save each penny for Eid, but this is the government’s Eid present to us,” she said.
Nearby, a huge billboard lay on the ground with...