How an RSS Event, Inert Cops & Youth Fervour Fuelled Kasganj Riots

An RSS programme scheduled to be held in Kasganj town on 4 February, besides the “shadowy” role of a few men closely associated with a local temple affiliated to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Gorakhnath Mutt, helped whip up a communal frenzy that subsequently degenerated into open violence, claiming the life of 19-year-old Chandan Gupta on 26 January.

Intelligence officers in the UP police and other knowledgeable sources in Kasganj revealed that the district administration had granted permission to the RSS to organise a march-past of an estimated 10,000 Sangh workers on 4 February but cancelled the programme once Hindus and Muslims clashed on Republic Day.

Organisers of the event, which was to be held at the town’s Barahpatthar grounds, as well as participants from nearby districts had slowly begun to gather in Kasganj, significantly raising and bolstering Hindu sentiments, including of the youth who sought to take out a rally through Baddunagar, a Muslim-dominated area off National Highway-33.

Where is Vishal Thakur?

“Hundreds, if not thousands, of RSS workers had slowly begun to assemble in Kasganj, taking up quarters in the homes of local activists,” a senior journalist working for a Hindi newspaper said, adding that the march-past had been well-publicised in local dailies several days before the actual outbreak of violence in the town.

Even as the 11 FIRs filed by the Kasganj police are peppered with inconsistencies, the initial probe ignored the role played by an ABVP activist Vishal Thakur in fomenting trouble that quickly spun out of control to assume proportions of communal violence.

Sources said that Thakur, who is said to be a close confidant of Kasganj MP Rajbir Singh, the son of Rajasthan Governor and a former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, would often hold meetings at Shernath temple, which is directly affiliated to the Gorakhnath Mutt, in the weeks leading up to the riots.

Thakur was present at the time when a Hindu mob comprising mostly college-going youth sought to take out a tricolor march through Baddunagar where they were stopped by a large group of Muslims who had unfurled their own national flag on the morning of 26 January.

He was seen to have ridden pillion on the motorcycle of 19-year-old Chandan Gupta who died of bullet wounds the same day, sparking a fresh bout of violence across some parts of Kasganj town. The police’s inability to track down Thakur, over three weeks after the violence, is being seen as “intentional feet-dragging” by influential Muslim leaders in the town .

Forewarnings Ignored by Kasganj Police

While the town police were slow to react to the violent Hindu-Muslim clashes and had little or no intelligence on the impending trouble, they sought to ignore warnings of potential Hindu-Muslim “trouble” by a certain Ayush Sharma who was a volunteer for Sankalp Foundation and a close associate of Chandan Gupta.

Ayush had tweeted to the Kasganj police on 20 January, expressing apprehensions of communal tension in the town. But the then superintendent of police Sunil Kumar Singh, who was subsequently removed following the police’s failure to preempt and quell the violence, dismissed the warnings and in turn tweeted that “Kasganj is a dead city”.

This apart, forewarnings of impending trouble were available to the police in the form of the “vitriolic” messaging between young Hindu and Muslim men on social media at least three to four days before Independence Day. Besides, even as the situation spiralled out of control and firearms were used by both sides, leading to the death of Chandan Gupta, fuel was added to the communal fire by Rajbir Singh who exhorted BJP, ABVP and Bajrang Dal men – captured on video – to stand their ground especially because “one of us” has fallen (in reference to Chandan Gupta succumbing to bullet injuries).

Rajbir Singh, aka Rajju Bhaiyya, is seen telling the agitated crowd surrounding him that “yeh jo ghatana ghati hai, isko kisi bhi kimat pe maaf nahin kya ja sakta…Yeh jhagda yojana-baddh tarike se kiya gaya hai jismein humara ek aadmi swarg-vaasi ho gaya (this incident cannot be condoned at any cost…This fight was pre-planned, in which one of our men was killed)”. Clearly, Rajbir’s objective was to not just incite communal passion but also lay the blame on the Muslims in the town.

A Restless ‘Young Muslims’ Brigade

Local police sources revealed to The Quint that no saffron flags were visible when Chandan Gupta and his associates took out the tricolor march around 10 am on 26 January. However, by the time the young Hindu men (some riding motorcycles) neared the Muslim-dominated Baddunagar locality, local ABVP, VHP and Bajrang Dal men had “infiltrated” the crowd, raising incendiary and insulting slogans against the minority community.

This does not, however, mean that the Muslims had not turned aggressive over the last few months. Sources in Kasganj’s Muslim community admitted that the “younger elements had practically begun to ignore the elders” who advocated “non-confrontationist” means to resolve political and inter-community issues.

Dr Mohammad Farooq, a former member on the Kasganj Municipal Board, shrugged in admission to this trend among the younger generation of his co-religionists. All he would say is that “the approach of today’s generation of boys is unacceptable”.

While the wounds of last month’s communal violence will take time to heal, if at all they do, Kasganj’s political elites agree that the Hindu-Muslim disturbances reflect the BJP’s loosening grip over the town. Several independent candidates were able to clinch municipal seats from the BJP in the elections to the local body held in November 2017.