UP teenager set ablaze for refusing to say 'Jai Shri Ram', cops suspect foul play

Chandauli (Uttar Pradesh): A 15-year-old Muslim boy was set on fire by four people in Chandauli district when the boy refused to chant "Jai Shri Ram".

The incident took place on Sunday night and the boy has been admitted to Kabir Chaura hospital in Varanasi.

The condition of the boy with 60 per cent burns is said to be critical.

The teenager was set on fire when he refused to chant "Jai Shri Ram". He gave this statement on the hospital's camera.

"I was walking on Dudhari bridge when four men kidnapped me. Two of them tied my hand and third one started pouring kerosene. After which they set me on fire and ran away," he said.

He later said that he was being forced to chant "Jai Shri Ram".

However, the police are treating this whole case as suspicious.

A senior police official in Varanasi told IANS that he was not aware of the incident.

Several incidents of Muslims being forecd to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' by mobs have been reported from various parts of India after the Narendra Modi-led BJP government began its second term.

Two men -- Shaikh Amer (24), a delivery boy with food ordering app Zomato, and his friend Shaikh Nasir (26) -- were allegedly threatened and forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in Aurangabad city by some unidentified persons on July 21.

On July 19, a man was allegedly thrashed by a group of unidentified men and forced to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' in Aurangabad city of Maharashtra. Imran Ismail Patel, a hotel employee, said in his complaint that a gang of around ten goons stopped him near Hudco Corner in Begumpura area when he was returning home on a motorbike in the early hours.

A 24-year Muslim man was beaten by a mob in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district on June 18, and he died in the hospital, allegedly of his injuries, four days later. According to the FIR, the mob also forced Ansari to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”.

Expressing concern at the number of "religious identity-based hate crimes" in India, a group of eminent citizens had recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that 'Jai Shri Ram' has become a provocative war cry with many lynchings taking place in its name.

The July 23 letter, which also stressed that there is "no democracy without dissent", is signed by 49 celebrities from various fields, including filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aparna Sen as well as vocalist Shubha Mudgal, historian Ramchandra Guha and sociologist Ashis Nandy.

"We, as peace loving and proud Indians, are deeply concerned about a number of tragic events that have been happening in recent times in our beloved country," the open letter to Modi said.

"The lynching of Muslims, dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately. We were shocked to learn from the NCRB that there have been no less than 840 instances of atrocities against dalits in the year 2016, and a definite decline in the percentage of convictions," it continued.

Responding to the letter, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told PTI that minorities and dalits are safe in India and criminal incidents should not be communalised.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan had to face a cyber attack for signing the letter after Kerala BJP leader B Gopalakrishnan asked him to go to the Moon if he can't bear chanting of 'Jai Shri Ram' in India and elsewhere in the world. In a sharp reaction to the provocative statement, the filmmaker said that the BJP wanted to send him to the Moon because Pakistan must be filled by now. Several political leaders, activists and artistes had come in support of Adoor after the incident.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, also a signatory of the letter, had to file a police complaint after a person issued a threat on Twitter.