Global human rights watchdog Amnesty International has hit out at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for a visit to a new bulldozer-manufacturing factory located in the west Indian city of Vadodara in Gujarat state.
Amnesty has described Johnson’s presence at the JCB manufacturing unit as “ignorant”.
“In the backdrop of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (North Delhi Municipal Corporation) using JCB bulldozers to raze down shops of Muslims in Northwest Delhi’s Jahangirpuri yesterday, UK Prime Minister's inauguration of a JCB factory in Gujarat is not only ignorant but his silence on the incident is deafening,” Amnesty International, which is headquartered in London, said in a series of tweets.
“As Indian authorities clamp down on human rights daily, the UK government must not remain a mute bystander. It must bring human rights to the discussion table. India cannot wait another day for justice,” it added.
Amnesty also noted that the demolition continued in “defiance” of the Supreme Court order. “The residents of Jahangirpuri were not even given an opportunity to salvage their possessions,” it said.
“These brazen attacks on the right to livelihood and adequate housing of religious minorities in India is an attack on their hopes for a secure future,” the group stated.
Johnson is on a two-day visit to India and has bragged that the trip would garner around 1 million pounds in investment and create around 11,000 jobs in the UK.
The PM's factory visit has garnered significant attention in the South Asian nation as it came a day after Delhi civic authorities demolished illegal constructions in the city’s north-west.
The demolition drive, which has been put on hold by India’s Supreme Court, marks a growing trend of authorities in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-controlled states deploying bulldozers to target the homes of those involved in communal clashes.
The illegal structures predominantly belonged to Muslims accused by Delhi Police of being involved in communal clashes that rocked the Indian capital on 16 April, when a Hindu religious procession was passing through a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood.
While the investigators claim that the procession turned violent after local Muslims pelted it with stones, Muslim organisations and families of those arrested say that there were “miscreants” present in the procession who hurled verbal abuse at Muslims and threatened locals with swords when asked to stop such sloganeering.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), which is controlled by the BJP, announced a “special encroachment removal programme” in Jahangirpuri late in the evening on 19 April.
However, a team of high-profile lawyers representing India’s leading Muslim organisation Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JuH) approached the Supreme Court to get a stay on the order, arguing that the occupants hadn’t been given a due notice period before the demolition activity.
The top court ordered a 24-hour stay on the demolition activity on Wednesday. On Thursday, the top court ordered that the “status quo” must be maintained for another two weeks. It also warned the NDMC against carrying out any demolitions against its order for the next two weeks, amid claims that the civic agency hadn’t followed the court’s order and went ahead with razing of buildings on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, major Indian opposition parties, including the opposition Congress party, have accused the BJP of “bulldozing” India’s long cherished Hindu-Muslim amity under the auspices of its anti-encroachment drive.