A Twitter user’s horrifying experience in a Mumbai local train has gone viral. The user, Raskolnikov, has posted a series of tweets to recount how a group of four ‘urban youth,’ seemingly educated had traumatised a Muslim family with their bigotry.
Raskolnikov wrote, “My fellow Indians, (I’m not talking to you sanghis and bhakts). Let me offer you a glimpse of what urban India has turned into. Context: a packed local train in Bombay. I enter, lackadaisical as usual, with my earphones stuffed into my ears: believe you me, you need to read this.”
He went on to narrate his story, which is bound to send shivers down every Indian’s spine. He wrote, “I suddenly realise that the compartment is more raucous and rowdy than usual.. I ignore it like a true blue Bombay-ite… but suddenly I can’t.. I pause my music to hear what’s happening.. Chants of ‘har har modi…’ 4 urban youth not out of place in a corporate office.”
The Twitter user wrote that their appearance was suggestive of the fact that they could be ‘your teller in the bank or your network specialist.’ Raskolnikov added that it didn’t take him long to realise that the four goons were using their provocative utterances to ‘intimidate a Muslim family sitting in the compartment.’
“They talk about how Muslims would be booted out in the ‘New India’, and how foreigners were unacceptable and unwelcome in India. Let me clarify: they aren’t talking to this family directly. The conversation is between the 4 of them,” he added.
He said that while some passengers made efforts to intervene, arguing that India was a democracy and they could vote for parties and politicians according to their free will. To which, the four goons responded by saying that they weren’t talking to anyone, ‘but are having a conversation amongst themselves.’
The goons, according to Raskolnikov, went a step further in their provocation as they began to chant ‘Mandir wahi banega, humara mandir wahi banega. Bharat ka sher kaun? Modi, Modi, Modi.’
Frightened and feeling helpless, the Muslim family including women and children got off at the next station and disappeared into the crowd, added the Twitter user.
While concluding his series of tweets, the user said that the episode left him shocked for several reasons including that ‘this happened in the first class compartment of a train in Bombay- a metro city. He asked, “These 4 goons managed to overpower everyone else’s objections using the name of Modi, nationalism, and religion. They weren’t talking directly to this Muslim family, but they managed to intimidate, harass, and drive them out from a train. (How much longer before they drive the Muslims out of our country?)”
You can read his entire Twitter thread, which has been shared and liked thousands of times, below:
My fellow Indians, (I’m not talking to you sanghis and bhakts). Let me offer you a glimpse of what urban India has turned into
Context: a packed local train in Bombay.I enter,lackadaisical as usual, with my earphones stuffed into my ears: believe you me,you need to read this (1)— raskolnikov (@iIakobos) April 12, 2019
Only last week, BJP President Amit Shah had come under fire for threatening to deport ‘infiltrators’ out of India with the exception of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. His comments had evoked angry reactions from Muslims.