Delhi violence victim: ‘I thought I wouldn’t survive’

“They saw my cap, beard, my clothes and saw I’m a Muslim.”

Mohammad Zubair lay on the floor, bleeding, but the baton blows kept on coming. He thought he was going to die. “Twenty or 25 people started beating me, the rest were standing by as if they were watching a show,” he said.

Violence in India’s capital New Delhi has left more than 40 Muslims and Hindus dead and hundreds injured, in the worst communal violence to hit the city in decades. Mosques were set alight and Muslim businesses and property were destroyed.

This started over protests against India’s new citizenship law, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which critics describe as “anti-Muslim”.

The clashes came after members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party warned protesters to end their sit-ins.