Islamophobia behind Haryana having new jail, 'welcomed' by locals with sweets

By Adv Ashutosh Kumar Mishra*
Recently, Nuh district in the Mewat region of Haryana has been in the news for a peculiar reason. It has been reported that villagers from Nuh district are celebrating the inauguration of a new jail. The celebrations broke out after the demand of the residents was "fulfilled."
The demand was about having a new jail facility constructed near the area. Police officials claim that this new facility will reduce the pressure on Gurugram’s Bhondsi jail and the Faridabad jail. Incidentally, around 40 per cent of the inmates in two jails hail from the Nuh district.
People are saying that earlier, they had to spend money to travel to meet their families since the prison was far away. Now that the jail will be nearer, they will be able to easily meet their children. The jail was inaugurated by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Nuh town on February 15, 2022. The jail complex is said to have the capacity of 1,000 prisoners.
Nearly 30,000 residents of Haryana’s Jamtara, Jamalgarh and Nai villages of Punhana sub-division of the Mewat region, distributed sweets after the inauguration of the new facility in the district. Presently, the Bhondsi jail has a capacity of 3,000 inmates and around 600 of them are from Nuh, and families travel over 60 km to meet their kin.
One important fact to note also in light of this news is that Muslims comprise only 14.2 percent of the population of the country, while according to a recent census data, they constitute 26.4 percent of the total prison population. This disproportion is not random and speaks of the Islamophobic environment of the country, which has been intensified since the last few years under the Modi government.

Additionally, Muslims are also more likely to face torture of all kinds in the police custody. The chances of a fair trial are also skimmer since mostly, they are not in a position to hire good advocates to defend them. Muslims are more likely to be hanged as well when the cases are high-profile, as a look at the historical cases would testify.
At a time when the Indian populace is in need of hospitals, schools, and other facilities that can improve their lives, the government is handing them new jails and presenting them as a good deed.
Healthcare facilities, education, transportation, electricity, etc, are what should be attended to by the government. Instead, we are being presented with more infrastructure designed to incarcerate people.
The National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO) has drawn people's attention to the way in which the government is absolving itself from its responsibilities of providing people with facilities to better their lives. Other organisations and civil societies should also speak more emphatically on issues that matter, and not let the government pass by with absolving their responsibilities.
---
*Vice-President, Delhi, NCHRO

Comments

A. K.. Luke said…

What does the first part of this report, of a new jail in Nuh, have to do with the next bit which is the disproportionate number of Muslims in Indian jails?

February 27, 2022

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Transgender Bill testimony of Govt of India's ‘contempt’ for marginalized community

Counterview Desk India’s civil society network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)* has said that the controversial transgender Bill, passed in the Rajya Sabha on November 26, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, is a reflection on the way the Government of India looks at the marginalized community with utter contempt.

Search This Blog