Stabbed while on duty during their night shift on April 27, two security guards at a construction site in Thane, Maharashtra, were asked about their religious identity before being attacked by a 31-year-old Zaib Zubair Ansari, who returned to India in 2019, before which he used to study in the US.
The victims have been identified as Subrata Sen and his supervisor, Rajkumar Mishra, who was rushed to the hospital in a critical condition after the attack.
Allegedly, the assailant attacked both the victims using a knife, and the whole episode unfolded when Ansari approached Sen, at around 3 AM, under the pretext of asking for directions. One of the questions Ansari asked was, ‘Aage Masjid Hai Kya?’ The US-returned science graduate then continued to roam around in the area after he asked Sen, ‘Hindu Ho Kya?’
At around 4.30 AM, after Sen returned from a tea break, Ansari returned, grabbed the victim’s right hand, and said yet again, ‘Hindu Ho Na’, took out a knife and attacked the security guard. Injured, Sen rushed to his supervisor’s cabin, to where he was followed by the attacker, who then confronted supervisor Mishra and asked him, ‘Tu Bhi Hindu Hai Na? Agar Nahi Hai Toh Kalma Padh’. And when Mishra could not respond with the Kalma, he was stabbed as well.
Based on a complaint filed by Subrata Sen, a case was registered at the Naya Nagar police station. After receiving information about the incident, with the help of CCTV footages, the police managed to trace Ansari to his rented accommodation in the Naya Nagar area itself, which his landlord had reportedly asked him to vacate by May 5. Ansari was arrested within 90 minutes.
Police investigation led to the fact that the assailant, who had earlier studied in the US, and until three to four months ago, also worked as a teacher at a coaching institute, allegedly repeatedly viewed ISIS propaganda content. Therefore, for deeper investigation as required, the case has been handed over to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, and the ATS and the Naya Nagar police are jointly looking into the matter to determine any larger extremist connection to the case.
While during investigation, the ISIS-fanboy claimed that this was his ‘first step’ towards joining the terrorist organization, this incident, yet again, forces us to reckon with the bitter fact that people around us, who look absolutely normal, live around us as students and teachers, harbour such hatred towards the religion followed by the majority of this country; and on top of this, it is a breeze for such extremists to attack and even murder innocent people, simply because they are not Muslim.
Where do they get this audacity, and more importantly, when and how is this ludicrous hatred going to come to an end? While we keep asking these questions time and again; they casually keep stabbing, beheading, and lynching, just in the name of religion, and Hindus simply continue to turn into statistics of the dead from human beings, alive and kicking, unaware of the dangers lurking around, right in front of their eyes, which have been covered with the blindfold called ‘secularism’.
