The Organization of Islamic Cooperation says attacks during the Ram Navami festival were a “vivid expression of rising Islamophobia” in India.
A prominent Muslim organization has denounced the “provocative acts of violence and vandalism” during India’s Ram Navami Hindu festival, accusing the organization of an “anti-Indian agenda”.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said instances of attacks against Muslims during the nine-day festival were a “vivid manifestation of rising Islamophobia and systematic attacks against India’s Muslim community”.
India’s Foreign Ministry condemned the statement, saying the OIC was displaying an “anti-Indian agenda”.
“This is yet another example of their communal mindset and anti-Indian agenda. OIC is only damaging its reputation by being consistently manipulated by anti-Indian forces,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement on Twitter.
According to local media reports, large processions of people carrying tridents, swords, sticks and other weapons passed through Muslim neighborhoods in several cities, chanting hate slogans and in some places even burning homes and shops.
At least two people have been killed in the violence during the festival, including one in the eastern state of Bihar, where authorities deployed hundreds of riot police and shut down mobile internet services to prevent a flare-up, according to local media reports.
The Jeddah-based 57-member OIC group said the violence during the Ram Navami processions saw the “burning of a madrassa (Muslim school) and its library by an extremist Hindu mob” in the Bihar city of Bihar Sharif.
Similar incidents of violence were reported from West Bengal, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and other states, leading to more than 100 arrests across the country.
Critics say hardline Hindu groups have been emboldened since Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat state in 2002 amid massive riots there, was elected prime minister in 2014.
“The General Secretariat of the OIC calls on the Indian authorities to take strong action against the instigators and perpetrators of such acts and to ensure the safety, security, rights and dignity of the country’s Muslim community,” the Muslim organization said.