The Washington Post: Modi’s government has turned Muslims into Coronavirus scapegoats in India

The Washington Post has published a report on the transformation of the Muslim government of India into a scapegoat in light of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic around the world.

The Washington Post has published a report on the transformation of the Muslim government of India into a scapegoat in light of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic around the world.

According to the report that its correspondents, Joanna Slater and Niha Masih, worked on, “On a bright morning earlier this month, a former army officer was riding his motorcycle down a rural road south of India’s capital when he reached an improvised barricade. He had no idea the villagers were looking for a scapegoat.”

The report continued, “He slowed his bike to a stop. The men at the barricade quickly identified him as a Muslim from the neighboring area in the state of Haryana. These people are spreading the coronavirus,” said one of the villagers, according to a police complaint filed by the man’s family. Grab him.”

 

“Sahimuddin, 49, who goes by only one name, felt a rope thrown around his neck. The attackers tightened the noose until he fell unconscious, the complaint said. He was later rushed to a hospital coughing blood, where doctors performed emergency surgery on his ruptured vocal cords and damaged trachea. He will require two more operations in the weeks ahead.”

In India, the search for scapegoats during the coronavirus pandemic has focused squarely on the country’s sizable Muslim minority, a community of 200 million that felt under threat even before the advent of covid-19.

News channels and some ruling-party officials rushed to blame Muslims for the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country after an Islamic missionary group in New Delhi emerged as a super-spreader. In recent weeks, Muslims have been assaulted, denied medical care and subjected to boycotts — all in the name of fear of the virus.