A former senior official of the United Nations has expressed shock and sounded alarm over Hindu extremists call for genocide of Muslims in India.
Many extremist Hindu religious leaders and politicians gathered for a meeting in Haridwar last month. Haridwar is a prominent pilgrimage site for Hindus in the northern Uttarakhand state, where multiple speakers called on the community to arm themselves for a genocide against the Muslim minority.
“Even if just 100 of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious,” Sadhvi Annapurna Maa of the far-right Hindu Mahasabha (Grand Assembly of Hindus) told a cheering crowd at the event.
The videos of the meeting went viral on social media, sparking outrage and prompting calls for nabbing those Hindu extremist leaders who were openly called for the killings. In the month since, two speakers have been arrested while others roam free as the police say they are investigating the matter, Al-Jazeera.com reported today.
Meanwhile, many experts have raised an alarm. During a congressional briefing in the United States, Professor Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, warned in unambiguous words that a “genocide could very well happen in India”.
In August last year, Stanton, who has modelled 10 Stages of Genocide, put India on the 8th stage, i.e. persecution of a community. The remaining two stages are extermination and denial.
Juan E Mendez is the first United Nations Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide (2004-2007), appointed by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He also served as the president and commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and as the UN Special Rapporteur on torture. Currently, he is a professor of human rights law at the American University in Washington, DC.
Juan-E-Mendez has termed the situation in India, home to about 200 million Muslims, very dangerous and deeply disturbing as well.
