New Delhi: The New York Times on Thursday published a report, on the deadly riots that gripped the Indian capital last month, entitled ‘How Delhi’s police turned against Muslims’. It noted that recent evidence suggests that New Delhi police “concertedly moved against Muslims” and “actively helped Hindu mobs” for targeting Muslims and their homes.
NYT noted that several videos have sur¬faced of Delhi police assaulting Muslims protesters, and urging Hindu mobs to join.
According to Kashmir Observer, it quoted a po¬lice commander as saying that as the violence erupted — at¬tributed to mostly Hindu mobs — officials were told to deposit their guns at the police station; NYT journalists later heard offi¬cials yelling to one another that they needed guns, not sticks, to confront the growing mobs.
Highlighting that majori¬ty of those that were killed in the violent clashes were Muslims, the report also accuses In¬dia’s police force of being “politicised” by Modi’s ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. It cited the example of a school principal who was jailed on sedition charges for staging a play about the coun¬try’s new citizenship law.
In the article the New York Times alleged that police took part in violence against Muslims or stood aside during the riots.
However, the Indian Police Service Association has strongly condemned an article in The New York Times calling it a combination of biased reporting, dangerous innuendo and outright lies.