Why the police investigation into Mira Road violence has left Muslims with little hope of justice

On the night of January 21, Sunaina Gupta was riding pillion with her husband Vinod Jaiswal on a motor bike.
Her children, she said, were holding saffron flags with the words “Jai Shri Ram” written on them and travelling in a car.

They were in a motorcade of “around 10 bikes and six cars”, Gupta said, all celebrating the Ram temple inauguration in Ayodhya the next morning, when they entered Naya Nagar, a Muslim quarter in Mira Road, an area north of Mumbai.

Gupta said they were attacked by a crowd with stones, pipes and sticks. She was left with a wound on her head and required three stitches near her eyebrow.

By the next day, the police had registered a first information report. Among the sections of the Indian Penal Code invoked was the one that relates to “attempt to murder”. The police have so far arrested 21 people, including two minors, from the Muslim community. The punishment under this section, a non-bailable offence, is life imprisonment.

Three hours after the Naya Nagar clash, and about 3 km away, a mob stopped Jabir Siraj Ansari while he was driving a couple from Andheri to Bhayandar in his cab.

The mob demanded to see his identity card, his uncle told Scroll. When...

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