“We are not safe,” foreign students say after attacked by Hindutva group for praying Taraweeh in Gujarat
New Delhi: A Hindutva mob attacked Muslim international students studying at Gujarat University, one of the public state universities in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, over offering Taraweeh prayers at their hostel.
According to Kashmir Media Service, videos of the attack are viral on social media, triggering widespread outrage.
The students said that the mob was chanting Islamophobic and Hindu religious slogans ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and also carried knives, cricket bats, stones and, other weapons which they used to attack them. The police, the students complained, “let the goons go and did nothing.”
Five students have sustained severe injuries and are admitted to the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Hospital. Those admitted are Haroon Jabbar from Afghanistan, Azad from Turkmenistan, and a Christian student Mario from Sri Lanka, the other two students are from African countries.
Ahmad Waris Sakha, a student of cyber security, told the media, “As there are no mosques inside the university campus or the hostel premises. This was the temporary solution we found to offer our prayers on time. The mosque in the town is very far away. So we congregate in our hostel ground. We are 12 Muslim students from Asian and African countries.”
Sakha said that when they stood to offer Taraweeh prayers in A – block of the hostel, allotted to international students, they started hearing the chants of Jai Shree Ram.
“A mob, some of them wearing saffron scarves, came and started pushing us and asked questions like who allowed us to pray there and that they won’t let us pray in the hostel. By the time we could understand anything, they started beating and attacking us with the weapons they had. With knives, stones, and cricket bats, many of our fellow students got injured” said Sakha.
Sakha, who is also the representative of the foreign students studying in GU, tried calling one of the officials in the administration, Dr. Jyoti, who is responsible for looking after the foreign students in the varsity but received a response opposite to his expectations.
“She said, this is not our responsibility”, said Sakha.
“The mob numbers were increasing, in a quick matter of time there were at least 200 of them. We then called the police and it took them more than an hour to reach our hostel. Upon hearing the siren of police vehicles and learning that the police had arrived, most of them ran while some of them were present on the premises. Police saw them, but did nothing to them. In front of the police, they managed to escape and the police let them go.”
