Angry Indian Muslim leaders claim their community is the target of a witch hunt by police investigating the Mumbai train bombings last week which killed 183 people and wounded 800.
They say Muslims are being targeted by authorities, who have rounded up hundreds of people for questioning from different parts of the country, although police deny Muslims are being singled out.
The crackdown follows investigators saying the attacks bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
The group is being scrutinized along with a banned Mumbai-based organization called the Students Islamic Movement of India.
And some within India's intelligence community reportedly suspect the blasts to be the handiwork of Muslims wanting revenge for sectarian riots in western Gujarat State in 2002, in which some 2,000 members of their community were killed.
Police said on Friday that they had arrested three people as part of the inquiry, the first since the July 11 blasts, but raids in Muslim-dominated areas continue.
The apparent close scrutiny Muslims are coming under has not gone unnoticed by leaders of India's 135 million to 140 million strong Islamic community.
"Of course this is a deliberate targeting of Muslims," said Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of India's largest and most famous mosque -- the Jama Masjid in New Delhi.
Bukhari's views are echoed by Rahat Mehmood Choudhury, a Muslim leader from India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.
"The investigating agencies are not being fair. There is [still] no evidence to suggest who carried out the blasts. But Muslims are being detained for questioning," he said.
In Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, the police have rounded up hundreds of suspects but freed most after questioning to try to prevent further attacks and tensions in a city with a history of communal clashes.
Anees Durrani, a former member of India's Haj Committee, said the Maharashtra police are "very biased against Muslims."
"You can see that very plainly by the way the investigations are proceeding. Leaders of Indian Muslims have condemned the Mumbai blasts and others before July 11. No one knows who carried out the blasts but the needle of suspicion is always pointed towards us," he said.
In the northeastern state of Assam, police this week arrested six Muslims on suspicion of having links with groups planning attacks in the state.
But they were also being investigated for possible involvement in the Mumbai blasts, police spokesman Rajen Singh said.
In neighboring Tripura State, 39 people were detained for questioning including 11 from Maharashtra who said they were in Tripura on a mission to preach Islam. The 11 were interrogated for a week by special anti-terrorist officers and released after the Tripura government confirmed they were "genuine preachers" and "not involved in unlawful activities."
The other 28 have also been released but remain under surveillance.
In the Andaman Islands, police this week rounded up 20 supposed Bangladeshi nationals and were questioning them for possible links with the Mumbai blasts, Jaspal Singh, superintendent of police in the Andamans, said.
Mumbai's joint commissioner of police Arup Patnaik said complaints of discrimination were not new to the force after a series of bombings in 1993 that left more than 250 dead was blamed on a nexus of underworld figures and Islamic militants.
He said round-up operations were continuing after the Mumbai train blasts alongside the main probe but were not specifically targeting Muslims.
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ¥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this