A 54-year-old muezzin was allegedly slapped by an unidentified man for refusing to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in Hoogly district of West Bengal on Wednesday early morning.
Muezzin Mohammed Sufiuddin claims that he was stopped by three youths on a motorcycle when he was cycling to a mosque early morning. They asked him to chant “Jai Shri Ram”, a Hindu chant that extremists use as a war cry while committing violent acts.
“I told them about my religious identity and requested them not to force me to chant the slogan. At this, one of the youths slapped me hard and I fell down with my cycle. As I cried in pain, the youths escaped from the scene. There was no one around as it was too early in the morning,” The Telegraph quoted Sufiuddin as saying. The Muezzin has filed a complaint at Chinsurah Police Station against three unidentified youth.
Gaurav Sharma, the Police Commissioner of the Chandernagore told that soon after they received the complaint, a probe has been started into the incident.
“They only slapped me once but I filed a complaint to teach them a lesson. If the proper investigation is done and they get punished, they will never dare to do any such thing again. This is not the culture of our area as I have been living here since my childhood,” Sufiuddin said.
The muezzin also believes that supporters of the BJP have started to harass Muslims like him since the party gained 18 seats in the State in parliamentary elections in 2019.
“This is not the first time that such an incident is taking place with me. After the 2019 election results were declared, a group of youth intimidated me and had forced me to chant the same slogan, they had said, ‘Kaka, Jai Shri Ram bolo’ (Uncle, say Jai Shri Ram) but one among them asked his other friend not to force me to chant this after I resisted,” he further added.
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Ghazala Ahmad is the Delhi Correspondent for The Cognate.
