How is VHP fanning the ‘land jihad’ campaign?

Fifty-nine-year-old Naseem Ahmad has been working as a guard since 1988 in Ismail Girls College, situated right in front of kotwali Meerut. He has five kids, three sons and two daughters.

All his kids are now well-educated. The entire family has been putting up in a one-room accommodation all along. With his life savings and a Rs 18 lakh bank loan, Ahmad recently managed to purchase a house. But now, Hindu extremists have taken the house away from them. Ahmad is now worried about his eldest son, Nauman Ali, a software engineer and the main borrower in bank documents. “Nauman took the loan and he did not even get the house,” Ahmad says.

Nauman, who has been living in Delhi, bought a 115-square metre plot and invested Rs 30 lakh of his savings, on top of Rs 18 lakh that he borrowed from the bank.

It’s difficult to understand what the family is going through.

Ahmad explains, “I have spent all my life in a single room. I want to die in my own home now. My son had made my dream come true, but hatred snatched away our sleep.”

Naseem’s other son, Usman, 20, recalls having grown up with Sohan Lal Uncle, the family’s next door neighbour. Naseem says that both families lived next to each other, but his family was being singled out now just for buying a house in a Hindu locality.

Another neighbour, Akhtar Khan, says, “The land owner, Samjay Rastogi, had come to hand over the ownership of the house after all the formalities were completed. Nauman’s family had even bought sweets to celebrate the occasion.”

“But one day, some 100-150 people gathered there and started shouting Jai Shri Ram and Har Har Mahadev. Then, they started protesting the selling of the house to the Muslim family. They said they won’t let any Muslim settle down in the locality,” Khan adds.

According to Khan, the entire matter then reached the police where even Sanjay Rastogi became teary-eyed, in a show of solidarity with the Muslim family.

“Sanjay Rastogi is a good man,” Khan says.

“He told the police, ‘I have sold my shop, my car and even my ancestral house to pay off the losses of my business. If they are such champions of Hindutva, then why don’t they help me out?’” Khan recalls.

Naseem Ahmad says, “We have been visiting this house for the last two-three months. We have taken a bank loan, too, for the house, for which even the bank officials used to come here with us. Why did they not object to it at the time?”

A relative of the family, Aftab Ahmad, says that the mistake Nauman Ali committed was that he bought a house in a Hindu-majority area, Moripara.

“Both the buyer and seller were satisfied with the deal, but people connected to Hindu organisations were upset with it. Sudarshan Maharaj of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) strongly protested it. A group of people then went to Sanjay Rastogi’s house and started pressurising him to cancel the deal. This matter escalated and eventually Nauman was called over to the kotwali,” Aftab says.

According to Inspector Yashveer Singh, Nauman Ali understands the situation and has agreed to return the house.

Singh says, “People unnecessarily turned it into an issue. Both the communities have been living here amicably. There haven’t been any tensions in the area.”

But the VHP has billed Muslims buying properties in predominantly Hindu neighbourhoods as ‘land jihad’.

Sudarshan Maharaj, a local VHP leader, says, “Land jihad a well-calculated conspiracy. Land is being occupied illegally in the name of building a mazaar near railway stations, parks and on the government land.”

“Besides, anti-national activities are being conducted by these people living in Hindu majority areas. Two such incidents have taken place in Bijnaur,” he adds.

“Hindus should not sell their houses or shops to Muslims,” Maharaj declares.

Baba Goswami, who is connected to Congress and helped in negotiating this deal, blames the BJP for the entire controversy.

“My neighbour and former councillor Mohit Rastogi himself sold his house to a Muslim. Where was this land jihad then?” Goswami asks.

According to him, a property dealer in the area, PP Rastogi, recently arranged for three Hindu owners to sell their houses to Muslims.

“In fact, over the last two months, a new word has come into use - land jihad.”

Another local, Waseem Mansuri, blames a journalism student, Manav Tyagi, for fanning the land jihad campaign.

“He keeps posting pictures of a small piece of land near Old Delhi Railway Station, which had been cleared to perform namaz . He wrongfully claims that there is a mosque at the place,” Mansuri says.

“The porters who stay at the railway station throughout the day perform namaz at this place only,” he says, adding that a senior Indian Railways official posted the pictures on Twitter. The post was picked up by a Hindu radical group who dubbed it as land jihad.

According to Abdul Gaffar, the word land jihad was never heard of until November.

“After this incident in Meerut, this word has suddenly become popular,” he said.

Deepak Verma of the VHP says, “Muslims have illegally occupied a lot of land in the name of mazaars and peer dargahs. This property is worth millions of rupees and to free this land is land jihad.”

Mohammad Azad, a resident of Meerut, recalls the love jihad campaign of the right-wing groups. “Now they have come up with land jihad,” he says.

“Their issues will not end till they have gotten rid of each and every Muslim in the country,” Azad adds.

Ashok Kumar of the VHP said, “We will not let any Muslim buy property owned by Hindus. We will also run a campaign to end the illegal occupation of land in the name of mazaars.”