A18| Thursday, February 27, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
cember that fast-tracks toward
Indian citizenship immigrants
from every major religious
group coming from countries
around India except Muslims,
has been a flashpoint for emo-
tional protests across India for
weeks, particularly in parts of
the capital with concentra-
tions of Muslim residents.
Those demonstrations were
also the backdrop for elections
held recently in the city, where
campaigning was marked by
often-inflammatory statements
by BJP candidates against
Muslims. The BJP, however,
failed to make inroads against
a regional rival political party
running the local government
that took a more moderate ap-
proach in trying to calm and
avoid sectarian tensions.On Saturday evening, dem-
onstrators protesting the citi-
zenship law began blocking a
main street in a mixed but
largely Muslim neighborhood,
one of many protests that had
been going on for weeks, resi-
dents of the area said. A BJP
politician from the area with a
record of making provocative
sectarian statements began
warning police over the week-
end to clear the street or local
groups would take matters
into their own hands after Mr.
Trump departed.
On Sunday afternoon, the
BJP politician, Kapil Mishra,
led a counterdemonstration by
a group of supporters of the
new law. The two sides clashed
on Sunday, and the confronta-
tion escalated on Monday andTuesday. Few police were in
attendance as groups of men
chanting Hindu slogans faced
off against Muslim groups and
both sides rampaged through
several neighborhoods, area
residents said.
The violence escalated
Tuesday night to such an ex-
tent that police refused to pro-
vide security for ambulances
and medical personnel to
move dozens of the seriously
injured in the area from a lo-
cal clinic to a larger hospital.
Judges from the city’s high
court issued an emergency or-
der in the middle of the night
forcing police to provide pro-
tection so that ambulances
could reach the injured.
“There were roughly 40 to
50 rioters carrying sticks andcountry-made pistols who were
shouting slogans saying they
won’t allow the ambulances to
enter,” said Shaleen Mitra, an
adviser to Delhi’s Minister of
Health. Several victims were
declared dead when they were
finally evacuated, he said.
In a separate order, the Delhi
High Court demanded authori-
ties head off further violence.
Some analysts also raised
concerns that supporters of
the ruling party are stoking
the violence.
“This violence in Delhi is
completely orchestrated,” said
Ajai Sahni, executive director of
the Institute for Conflict Man-
agement, a New Delhi-based
think tank. “The greatest con-
cern is not that you have riots;
the greatest concern is that...avisible hand of state agencies
and political powers is there.”
Government and BJP officials
rejected criticism that they have
been slow to react or that BJP
officials instigated the clashes.
“The prime minister is closely
monitoring the situation, along
with his key officials,” a govern-
ment official said.
Mr. Modi’s office didn’t re-
spond to requests for comment.
"Peace and harmony are
central to our ethos,” Mr. Modi
said in a tweet Wednesday,
one of the first times he has
mentioned the violence. “I ap-
peal to my sisters and broth-
ers of Delhi to maintain peace
and brotherhood at all times.
It is important that there is
calm and normalcy is restored
at the earliest.”WORLD NEWS
Deadly Clashes Spark an Outcry in India
Premier, ruling party
draw criticism after
protests escalate into
sectarian violence
Indian security forces patrolled a street in New Delhi on Wednesday after clashes between Hindus and Muslims left at least 27 dead amid growing communal tensions.ADNAN ABIDI/REUTERSNEW DELHI—Prime Minis-
ter Narendra Modi’s govern-
ment and ruling party came
under sharp criticism from In-
dian courts and political rivals
after four days of some of the
worst communal violence in
India’s capital city in decades
left at least 27 dead and more
than 200 injured.
The violence, which
morphed from dueling demon-
strations into deadly clashes
between Hindus and Muslims,
began playing out Sunday even
as President Trump left Wash-
ington for a two-day visit to
India at Mr. Modi’s invitation.
For the next several days,
Indians switched between wall-
to-wall news coverage of Mr.
Trump’s travels and appear-
ances and intermittent scenes
of rioting, stone hurling, beat-
ings and fires raging in a dif-
ferent quarter of the city.
The Indian National Con-
gress party, the main rival to
the governing Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party, stepped
up criticism of the government
as its leader, Sonia Gandhi, re-
leased a statement saying it is
“gravely concerned over the
unprecedented continuing vio-
lence and loss of lives in Delhi.”
The clashes are taking place
after months of growing com-
munal tensions as the Modi
government has pursued a
controversial social agenda
long sought by the BJP, which
Mr. Modi led to an overwhelm-
ing electoral victory almost a
year ago. Critics say the mea-
sures are designed to under-
mine India’s secular traditions
and advance the BJP’s goal of
promoting a society more re-
flective of its Hindu majority.
One of those measures, the
introduction of a law in De-
ByKrishna
Pokharel,Vibhuti
Agarwal
andRajesh Roy