The Hindu residents of some of the urban villages in New Delhi are living in persistent fear of a possible clash with their butcher’s knife-wielding Muslim neighbours as the incidents of Muslim tenants attacking Hindu residents is steadily on the rise. As per a report in Swarajya Magazine by journalist Swati Goel Sharma, who visited several of these violence-stricken places, there is a pattern to the gruesome killings of Hindus in the country’s capital.

Do you know that Ankit Saxena, Pankaj Narang, Khyala family, Dhruv Tyagi murders all happend within 6-7 km? I visited several of these sites in Delhi and found a perception of fear & panic among locals, that stems from what they see as a pattern Report:https://t.co/Tz9pbzM4o4 — Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) May 25, 2019

Recently, a businessman Dhruv Raj Tyagi, who owned several houses and shops in the Basai Darapur area of Delhi’s Moti Nagar, was stabbed to death by Jehangir Khan and his son Mohammad Alam. The 51-year old was hacked to death by the father-son duo as the victim went to Jehangir to complain about his son who had molested Tyagi’s daughter. The weapon with which Tyagi was murdered, a butcher’s knife, was provided by Jehangir Khan’s wife and daughter. Tyagi was not only murdered, but his body was mutilated, fingernails were ripped out and teeth were broken.

The locals in the area as quoted by Swati say that there has been a spurt in such incidents after increasing number of immigrant Muslims have started to settle in the area. Muslim immigration from adjoining states started gathering pace a decade ago. Many Muslims from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar came to Delhi in search of employment. Sensing business opportunity, many locals developed colonies with 3-storey houses and 2-3 single rooms on each floor. The colonies are so crammed up and congested that families keep crossing into each other’s space. Working as labourers, these Muslims started living as tenants in these colonies.

Rebel AAP MLA Kapil Mishra claims that the immigrant problem dates back to the Congress era when they actively settled Muslims in various areas of Delhi. “If in West Delhi, it’s Muslims from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and NCR [National capital region], it’s Bangladeshis in Okhla and Bawana [south Delhi and north-west Delhi],” he said.

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The gradual change in demography and the increase in crime reflects the fear and perception among the locals. The local residents in several pockets of New Delhi specifically relate the spurt in mob-lynching and cold-blooded murders of Hindus to the overwhelming immigrant Muslim population in the area. Some of the horrifying incidents such as Ankit Saxena murder, Dr Pankaj Narang case and the triple murders in Khyala echo the fear rising among the locals.

A Muslim mob gathered around Dr Pankaj Narang’s house in 2016 and pounded him to death using sticks and rods. Like a concerned father, Dr Narang had only dared to scold two motorcycle-borne youth for brushing past his son who was playing cricket on the road. A scuffle broke out shortly after which a Muslim mob returned baying for Dr Narang’s blood.

In another high-profile incident, Ankit Saxena, who was in a relationship with a Muslim girl, was killed in broad daylight by Akbar Ali, the girl’s father, aided by his wife and his brother-in-law. Akbar Ali slit the throat of Ankit Saxena in the middle of a road in Raghubir Nagar. Residents of the area also confided in Swati that Akbar Ali’s wife was a religious bigot who had pressurised a Muslim woman to convert her Hindu husband to Islam in order to avoid the wrath of ‘dojakh ki aag'(hellfire).

In an incident that happened in January this year, Mohammad Azad killed three members of a neighbouring Hindu family- Veerpal, Sunita and son Aakash. Aakash had confronted Azad for passing obscene remarks about his mother Sunita while she was entering the colony. However, this didn’t sit well with an enraged Azad who brought along with him meat chopper to stab the three members of the family to death.

There emerges a set of pattern in the gruesome killings of Hindus by Muslim tenants. When unarmed Hindu confronts a Muslim neighbour over a trifling issue, the latter gets Muslim mobs to attack the complainant; the increase in immigrant Muslims have exacerbated the crime situation in the crammed colonies of New Delhi; far from being peace advocators, the Muslim women have actively participated and facilitated in the murders of Hindu residents; killers have used a butcher’s knife, a quintessential feature of a Muslim household and the assailants exhibited indication of religious hatred against the victims.

As the Hindu residents have been gripped with the fear of Muslim onslaught, the Delhi-based associations which comprise mainly of Tyagis, Gujjars and Jatavs have called Panchayats of 70 villages from adjoining states to discuss the feasibility of not renting property to Muslims and not employing Muslim labour. Delhi based association of Tyagis have called for Muslim boycott. They claim that they have no problems with the Local Muslim population but with the immigrant ones which are flaring up the tensions in their colonies. However, not all association members are in agreement to prevent from renting their properties to Muslims as for many of them it is their source of income.