Not in my name: Prompted by a FB post, groups in 12 cities to protest against lynchings today

On Saturday, horrified by the murder of a 15-year-old Muslim boy in a train on the outskirts of Delhi two days earlier, Gurgaon-based filmmaker Saba Dewan posted a message on Facebook calling for a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Wednesday evening against the recent spate of lynchings of Muslims and attacks on Dalits. She decided to call the demonstration “Not in My Name”.

“We want to speak up against the recent incidents of communal or caste-based violence that have been happening in the past few years and specifically after Junaid’s lynching,” said Dewan. “We want to convey that whatever is happening in the society is not happening in our name; I do not approve of it.”

The message has rippled across India – and as far as the United Kingdom and Canada. On Wednesday, groups in at least nine other Indian cities will hold similar protests. Events are also planned in London and Toronto.

The immediate spark for the protests was the murder of Junaid on a Mathura-bound train on Thursday. He was returning to his home in Faridabad district with his brothers and two friends after some Eid shopping in Delhi. A dispute over a seat led to the boys being assaulted by a group of men who taunted them for being Muslim. Junaid and two of his companions were stabbed. The assailants flung them onto the platform at Asoti railway station. Junaid died soon after.

Series of attacks

This was the latest in a series of lynchings that started in September 2015, when an ironsmith named Mohammed Akhlaq was murdered in his home in the Uttar Pradesh area of Dadri by a mob that accused him of storing beef in his fridge.

Dewan said the repeated lynchings have left her distraught. “These attacks show that our fundamental rights are being violated and nd the state chooses to be silent,” said the filmmaker. “We need to remind the state that they are duty-bound and allowing repeated such attacks is a violation of the Constitution.”
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