PM Imran warns of ‘genocide of Muslims’ in India

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday once again urged the international community to wake up before the 'Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on the move leads to genocide of Muslims in India that would dwarf other genocides'.

In a post on Twitter, the prime minister said, “Whenever militias like Hitler's Brown Shirts or RSS are formed, based upon hatred of a certain community, it always ends in genocide.”

The prime minister was responding to a tweet shared by Suchitra Vijayan, founder of a New York based research organisation, showing RSS activists marching in military style in India's Telangana state.

Vijayan said RSS activists were "Nazi's in Khaki uniform.” “If the international community remains silent — you are complicit in endorsing the ongoing violence,” she said.

India has been rocked by demonstrations since December 12, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that provides non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who moved here before 2015 a pathway to Indian citizenship.

Read also: Biryani, bankers and burqas: Inside a sit-in protest on an Indian highway

At least 25 people have died in 14 days of demonstrations and violence after the Modi’s government passed the law.

The demonstrations have been largely peaceful but protesters have also hurled rocks and torched vehicles, while heavy-handed police tactics including the storming of a Delhi university a week ago have fuelled anger.

Islamic groups, the Indian opposition, and others at home and abroad fear this forms part of Modi’s aim to marginalise India’s 200 million Muslims and remould the country as a Hindu nation, something he denies.

Read also: Indian Muslim student rejects gold medal in protest against citizenship law

Authorities have imposed emergency laws, blocked internet access — a common tactic in India — and shut down shops in sensitive areas across the country in an attempt to contain the unrest.

More than 7,500 people have either been detained under emergency laws or arrested for rioting, according to state officials, with 5,000 in Uttar Pradesh state alone where 17 people have been killed.