Muslim residents of Atali village in Ballabgarh, Faridabad, have fled for their life, abandoning their homes which were torched along with their mosque in an attack by India Hindu Jat community earlier this week.
“We had just begun praying when the attacks started. They came in groups of 10 and attacked each house,” Isal, a showroom owner, located directly opposite the under-construction mosque, told Indian Express on Wednesday, May 27.
“Bricks and gas cylinders were thrown hurled inside the houses. They attacked us with baseball bats and sticks. We tried to escape by locking ourselves inside our homes.
“That was when they started dousing our homes with petrol and setting them on fire,” he added. The violence erupted last Monday evening when Muslims were praying Maghreb, or evening prayer.
The dispute apparently surrounded the construction of a new mosque that that frozen over the past six years.
Though Muslims confirmed that the court had given them permission to resume construction, Hindu Jats maintained that resuming the construction in the village was in clear violation of the court’s order.
The attack left the mosque burnt along with all 17 houses owned by Muslims in the area surrounding the mosque.
