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Some officers in India are ignoring and even supporting rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship within the nation, a United States official has mentioned throughout the launch of a report on non secular freedom globally in 2021.
The report launched late on Thursday mentioned assaults on members of non secular minority communities, together with killings, assaults and intimidation, had occurred all through the final yr in India. These included cow vigilantism – assaults on non-Hindus for allegedly slaughtering cows or buying and selling in beef.
Most Hindus, who account for about 80 % of India’s 1.35 billion individuals, contemplate cows sacred. Many states dominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) have enacted legal guidelines or toughened previous ones towards slaughtering cows.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned the report confirmed non secular freedom and the rights of non secular minorities had been beneath menace all over the world.
“For instance, in India, the world’s largest democracy and residential to a fantastic variety of faiths, now we have seen rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship,” Blinken mentioned.
Rashad Hussain, who leads the US State Division’s efforts to observe non secular freedom all over the world, mentioned some Indian officers had been “ignoring and even supporting rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship”.
Muslims make up about 14 % of India’s inhabitants.
India’s overseas ministry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. It has beforehand pushed again towards any commentary from outdoors on inner affairs, particularly from the US.
India often denounces the US Fee on Worldwide Non secular Freedom, an autonomous authorities panel which has repeatedly advisable that the State Division put India on a blacklist.
The State Division didn’t announce new designations on Thursday and it’s extremely unlikely that it might take motion towards India, recognized by successive US administrations as a key international accomplice within the face of a rising China.
The BJP authorities, nonetheless, has been accused of championing a sequence of measures that critics have referred to as discriminatory towards the minorities, primarily Muslims. The social gathering denies the allegations.
Supply: Al Jazeera
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