Muslims Helped Rebuild The Dasna Temple That Now Bars Them Entry

Village where thirsty boy was thrashed had both communities living peacefully together. Now, there’s fear and mistrust

- Himanshi Dhawan

On the evening of March 12, a 14-year old Muslim ragpicker spotted a handpump through a break in the boundary wall of the Dasna Devi mandir in Ghaziabad and walked in for a drink of water. The boy had been out all day looking for plastic bottles and junk that he could sell for Rs 100-Rs 150. The young boy, now with a heavily bandaged head and injured arm, says he was confronted by two men who first asked him his father’s name and then his. Within seconds, they were raining blows and twisting his arm so violently that the thin lad fell over. The bleeding boy was then thrown outside the temple. His offence: ignoring the board banning Muslims from the premises at the temple entrance. “He never went to school. How could he know it was out of bounds?” his mother Sitara asks.

After a video of the incident went viral, the accused Shringi Yadav and his associate have been arrested and released on bail. Local politicians of all hues have made a stopover at the village expressing sympathy for one side or the other. While #IStandWithShringiYadav and then #MandirKaBoardNahiHatega trended on Twitter this week, the boy’s family has police stationed outside their one-room tenement.