New Delhi, June 28: Are you angry, distraught or simply numb by the ongoing attacks against Muslims by mob in various parts of the country? Probably you are thinking you are too powerless to do anything in such a situation where government machineries too have failed to react.
But a Delhi University professor saddened by the cycle of violence is on a week-long fast at Jantar Mantar--the hub of all protests in the national capital--since June 25.
Professor Prem Singh, who teaches Hindi, started his fast just three days after the brutal murder of a Muslim teenager, Hafiz Junaid, on a local train in Haryana by a group of 15-20 odd men. In the last three months, as per reports, nine Muslim people were attacked by mob over suspicion of cow slaughter or beef eating. In an exclusive interview to Scroll, Singh said that he was fasting "to atone for the guilt he feels at the lynching of Muslims that just does not seem to stop". "My guilt is over my inability to stop lynchings in my society," Singh, who is also president of the little-known political party, Socialist Party, was quoted as saying by Scroll. "I am a professor. It means something in our society. You are a journalist, you have a status. Yet you and I have failed to stop the lynching," he added. Like Singh, it looks like a group of like-minded people have decided to break the silence surrounding communal and caste-based attacks by staging protests in 11 cities of the country and in London and Toronto on Wednesday. The protest--"Not in My Name"-- is the brainchild of Gurgaon-based filmmaker, Saba Dewan, who posted a message on Facebook calling for a protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Wednesday evening against the recent spate of lynchings of Muslims and attacks on Dalits. OneIndia News