Police publicly flog Muslims who 'disrupted Hindu festival' in India

Youtube


A public flogging of Muslims accused of disrupting a Hindu festival, carried out by the police, has sparked outrage across India, in a new low for religious tensions under Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister .

Incidents of sectarian violence are common in India, but the brutal beating of five men in the Kheda district of Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat is the first in which the police have been involved directly.

Footage of the flogging was shared widely on social media, with the men seen tied to an electricity pole being beaten with canes by armed police officers in plain clothes, as a crowd chants nationalist slogans.

Indravadan Patel, one of the festival’s organisers and a local politician, said a group of Muslim men objected to a traditional Garba dance taking place near a mosque and pelted the Hindus with stones.

Mr Patel said police arrested 10 out of 43 accused and brought them to the spot where the dance was held to flog them.