World | India
Mumbai Muslims worry about crackdown
Police investigators are focusing on militant groups as the main suspects in Tuesday's deadly Mumbai train bombings, but Muslims in this teeming, multi-ethnic metropolis say initial worries of a backlash are waning.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 July 15, 2006
Bombay: Police investigators are focusing on militant groups as the main suspects in Tuesday's deadly Mumbai train bombings, but Muslims in this teeming, multi-ethnic metropolis say initial worries of a backlash are waning.
Attention almost always focuses on Muslim militants after terror attacks in India, and the city's Muslim community was fearful as reports spilled out about the attacks, in which more than 200 people died when bombs tore through packed suburban trains.
Soon after, the police said they were focusing on Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Students Islamic Movement of India, two outlawed groups.
"I will admit that for a brief while I was scared," Altaf Sharif, a 30-year-old bank teller, said on Friday.
"But now I feel more confident. This city has changed, and I don't think it would be so easy for Muslim-baiters to create tensions. Maybe it's because everyone has more at stake and wants to keep business going," said Sharif, taking a lunchtime stroll outside the city's busy Churchgate train station.
That hasn't always been the case. A devastating series of 1993 Mumbai bombings killed 250 people, sparking days of violence in which scores of people, most of them Muslims, were killed.
But as the days slide by, threats of anti-Muslim reprisals appear increasingly remote.
Sharif's views were shared by many in Mumbai, a city of migrants scrambling for toeholds in India's financial centre. "Bombay has matured. People's emotions can't be swayed so easily," said Maqbool Ahmad Misbahi, a Muslim cleric.
Plus, he said, there is a growing realisation that riots bring the bustling commercial city to a standstill.
"People realise that political parties often have their own agenda when they pit Hindus against Muslims. They are not ready to take this any more," said Misbahi, sitting in his tiny office in one of the myriad bylanes that crisscross the city.
But there is another fear here: the police.
As public pressure to find the bombers has mounted, a harried police force has gone into overdrive. Midnight searches of Muslim neighbourhoods have led to the detention of hundreds of Muslims in the past few days.
Searches
"Look at the kind of people who were picked up for questioning - ordinary citizens dragged out of their homes and detained all night for questioning. These house-to-house searches at night, long waits at the police station, they are all creating a fear psychosis," said Suhail Rokadia, a Muslim social activist.
Even if things have changed in Mumbai, to some, memories of terror-filled days run deep.
"Whatever the men might say, I live with my worries," says Sabiha Begum, a housewife in her mid-50s, out buying groceries in a bustling Muslim neighbourhood. A widow with three sons, she worries each night until each comes home.
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