Sumaiya Ali, Maariyah Siddique/TwoCircles.net
Alwar (Rajasthan): The death of an infant during a police raid in a small village of Rajasthan’s Alwar district has sparked an outrage. Family members allege that the one-month-old infant, Alishba, was peacefully sleeping in her cot when she was stepped on by police officers, resulting in her death on the spot.
Following the incident, villagers took to the streets, demanding justice. Political leaders such as Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) visited the grieving family to offer their support.
The police, on the other hand, claim that they had received a tip through location tracking, suggesting that the area was a “den of cybercrime”. However, Imran, the father of the deceased infant, has no criminal record.
Congress leader Tika Ram Jully, the leader of the Opposition in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Rajasthan Assembly, has alleged that the incident is not an isolated case. He claimed the police in Alwar have been “harassing” people and “extorting money” under the guise of conducting raids.
Religious targets?
Imran’s neighbour Shakaut Ali, a 50-year-old farmer, says such instances of police barging into homes have become all too common since the death of Zuber Khan, a Congress MLA from the state in September 2024. “They (the police) are targeting us because we are considered as voters of the Congress party.”
Narayan Bareth, a Rajasthan-based political commentator, points out that the absence of a dominant political leader like Khan has led to increased targeting of vulnerable populations.
Khan was a prominent leader who “advocated political awareness and education”. “His death has left a political vacuum, which has emboldened police actions in the area. Although his wife has been working to cultivate support among the locals, the absence of strong leadership has made the situation more volatile,” he says.
Ali further says that even the local patwari has not visited the area despite tensions rising after the incident. “Offering help is far-fetched, no one came to visit us after this gruesome incident,” he says.
Ali explains that, under the pretence of finding cybercriminals, the police “frequently pick up” men from the neighborhood, only to release them after “extorting money”. The death of the infant is what ultimately drew attention to the raids, he believes, adding that had the infant not died, the raid on Imran’s house would have gone unnoticed.
When TwoCircles.net spoke to Ali, we asked if anyone in the neighborhood had ever questioned why they were being specifically targeted. His response was disheartening: “We are uneducated, so we don’t speak up.” This statement underscores the common plight of ordinary people, particularly those from economically vulnerable and underprivileged backgrounds.
A sizable portion of Alwar’s population consists of Meo Muslims, a religious minority group.
Brinda Karat, commenting on the case, asks, “Do they ever dare to walk into the house of a rich person, stand on their bed and kill a baby?”
‘Political atmosphere fueling violence’
Alwar is not unfamiliar with violence against its Muslim residents. In 2017, Pehlu Khan was lynched to death. In 2018, migrant laborer Afrazul was hacked to death over an accusation of “love jihad”. Amnesty International ranked Rajasthan as the third state with the most hate crimes in 2018. Despite the passage of years, the ground situation seems to have only worsened.
Karat, who visited the victim’s family in Raghunathgarh, pointed out the toxic political atmosphere under the current BJP government in the state. “Since the BJP came to power in Rajasthan, their toxic political agenda is being played out in several areas of the state,” she alleged.
Alwar is home to a significant minority population, mostly OBCs (Other Backward Classes), whose main source of income is cattle, explains Bareth. Since the BJP came to power, cattle farming has become a “sensitive issue” and a “bone of contention”, making it “easier for the majority community to target minorities along religious lines”. “Politically, attacking the marginalised — who often cannot fight back — pays dividends to particular sections,” he says.
The “raid” and the tragic death of the young child are but a symptom of a larger, more systemic problem in Alwar and other parts of Rajasthan. The vulnerability of marginalised groups, especially those from minority communities, is exacerbated by the lack of strong political representation, as well as by an environment where the police, under the guise of combating crime, are allowed to act with impunity.
For the residents of Alwar, particularly the Meo Muslims, the situation seems to be worsening rather than improving, and justice for Alishba remains uncertain as authorities continue to evade accountability.
