Broken Helmet, Beaten Kashmiris, Blatant Warning—What Happened in Ranchi?

This is the second attack in the last 20 days on Kashmiris in the Jharkhand capital. Four Kashmiri youths were earlier assaulted on November 11, and forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

SRINAGAR — At around 11 am on November 27, 2021, Riyaz Ahmad received a phone call from a bustling marketplace in Ranchi. 

This was the second panic call—a little over a fortnight—announcing another attack on Kashmiris.

Riyaz could tell from the troubled tone of his friends that they were in some serious situation. 

Amid shouts and abuses in the background of the call, he knew that his friends were being assaulted by a mob asking them to chant Jai Shri Ram and vandalizing their stall. 

These Kashmiris have been selling woollens for years in the capital of Jharkhand.

“On reaching the spot,” Riyaz told Mountain Ink over a phone call from Ranchi, “I was hit on my head due to which my helmet broke and I received injuries on my arms.” 

The hate crime occurred when these Kashmiri youths—Mohammad Burhan, Mohammad Tanveer, Sartaj Ahmad and Ghulam Nabi—were cornered by twenty mobsters near the Kadrupul area. They looted many of their belongings and left them with injuries and some stern words. 

Before visiting the police station for filing an FIR, these Kashmiris—selling winter clothing on the roadside in Doranda Police Station area of Ranchi—were threatened by the mobsters that “if Raj Kishore does not get bail today, we will teach Kashmiris a lesson.”

Kishore was arrested soon after the earlier attack on Kashmiris in Ranchi.

On November 11, a mob had assaulted four Kashmiri youths in Hathikhana Patthar Road of Doranda Police Station area and forcibly asked them to chant Jai Shri Ram. 

One of the accused, Kishore, was arrested on the complaint of the victims – Bilal Ahmed, Shabbir Ahmed, Waseem Ahmed.

When the second attack happened on Kashmiris in less than 20 days, Bilal, a victim of the previous attack, also went to the market along with his friends. 

“I saw a mob of 20 to 25 people assaulting our Kashmiri brothers,” Bilal Ahmed said. 

“They were asked to chant Jai Shree Ram. As we reached the spot the mob threatened us that if the accused in the last assault, Raj Kishore, does not get bail today, then they will teach all the Kashmiris a lesson.” 

Following the attack, the Kashmiri youths along with some locals blocked the road demanding action against the assaulters. A large number of people subsequently arrived at Doranda Police Station to press charges against the mobsters. 

But even as police said that they’ve arrested two persons and the investigation is going on in the case, the threat by mobsters has unsettled these Kashmiris. 

“We have only come here to make some decent living,” Riyaz said. “But these attacks have created a lot of anxiety for us. We don’t want to get involved in any of these cases. We just want to do our business. It is up to authorities now to ensure our safety and security.”