Haryana village chief retracts boycott call issued following Nuh violence

A modest structure containing a Mazar (shrine) juxtaposed with portraits of Hindu gods set between a few trees on the main road welcomes visitors to Haryana's Saharanwas village. "This is a symbol of harmony and coexistence in our village," Vikas, a village resident, remarked.

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However, the community is currently making headlines due to a recent diktat issued by its panchayat urging residents to boycott Muslims.

Saharanwas is one of the villages in Rewari where a boycott call was recently issued, urging residents not to do business with or rent out their homes to Muslims. The sarpanch released a letter on Wednesday retracting her prior comments.

According to locals, there is not a single Muslim resident in the village. Sunil Kumar, a security guard, stated, "Only Hindus live here."

The village sarpanch in Chimnawas, around 10 kilometers from Rewari town, had issued a similar boycott order.

"We have no ill will toward Muslims," claimed Krishna, the sarpanch of Saharanwas. We just stated that people who incite violence should not be permitted to enter the area." Her husband, former Sarpanch Vijay Singh, claimed the call was in reaction to cow vigilantes who had requested them to make sure Muslims were not permitted inside.

The now-retracted boycott request was supported by people like Deshraj, a driver, who stated, "Miscreants might come to our village to disrupt harmony here."

According to Vikas, a resident of Saharanwas, the sarpanch's letter was not a call to boycott Muslims, but rather an attempt to defend the community from miscreants. Devender, a merchant in Rewari town, claimed security had been increased. "Two police officers have been stationed at the local mosque." After the Nuh tragedy, some laborers left town."

In Sundroj village, eight kilometers from Saharanwas, lives Hasan, a deodorant seller who goes by only one name. "We live far away and have no ties to those who live there." They do not rent out houses to Muslims... but we are far distant from their daily lives.

"I'm a perfume distributor, so I have to go to these villages, but I've never had a bad experience," he added.

His father, Lal Chand (70), said the sarpanch in his village was a "good person" after his father gave him a Hindu name in the 1950s. "In our village, people of various classes and religions... "We've never had a problem," he explained.

Hasan stated that following the violence, some laborers working in Rewari town were sent back to their villages.

While Chand, the proprietor of a general store, is not concerned about boycott calls since "neighbors have not been like that," he has "left everything to God."

Meanwhile, in Jhajjar, the divisional commissioner has served show cause notices on the sarpanches of two villages, Kablana and Munda Heda, who had issued boycott calls against Muslims.

"We received Kablana's letter and issued a show cause notice." They apologized and redacted the statement," stated Captain Shakti Singh, DC, Jhajjar.

Sarpanch Krishna of Saharanwas said in her letter on Wednesday, "The letter that prohibited Muslims was written due to oversight." We withdraw that assertion."

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