Panipat, August 23, 2021 (PPI-OT):An Imam of masjid was forced to leave his village in Haryana, India, after he refused to submit to the Hindu extremists’ pressure to chant ‘Vande Mataram’. A video doing rounds on social media shows the Imam surrounded by a gang of Hindu extremists are being forced to chant Vande Mataram and when he refuses to do so the Hindus asked him why would he not chant the Hindu slogan. The incident took place in Bapauli village of the state.

One extremist dictates the imam “Vande Mataram bolne se kya problem hai?” (what is the problem in saying Vande Mataram?). The man then goes on to say if you are living in India why would one not say ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat mata ki jai’, to which the Imam politely refuses.

The imam said he doesn’t believe in chanting slogans and there are other ‘Nazm’ (poems) in ‘Hindustan’ that Indians can use and not just one kind of forced a Hindutva slogan. This is not the first time that Muslims in India have been targeted while there have been many cases where people from Muslims were disrespected and treated badly for not chanting Vande Mataram or Jai Shri Ram.

In June this year, an elderly Muslim man was assaulted by at least three men in Ghaziabad, bordering Delhi, and was forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Vande Mataram’, videos of which went viral. Earlier in August, a journalist in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar was forced by a mob to chant “Jai Shri Ram” while reporting on a march demanding the establishment of a uniform civil code in the country.

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