Like it or not, Deoband bypoll will be a communal issue: BJP

The Deoband, Uttar Pradesh, bypoll on 13 February will be a communal issue according to the BJP candidate, reports The Indian Express. The candidate, former RSS pracharak Rampal Singh Pundhir, who has been in jail in an attempt-to-murder case, says that if he is elected, he will restore Hindu pride. "Muslims will feel scared. They and their hooligans will feel our terror."

Deoband, home of the Dar-ul-Uloom seminary, remained quiet during the 2013 Muzzafarnagar riots. It has never seen communal clashes. But the BJP in Deoband sees the bypoll as a fight between Hindus and Muslims.

"Hindus are unsafe. Honour of our mothers and daughters is threatened. Hindu traders face theft, dacoity, are murdered. Deoband mein kisi Hindu ki himmat nahi hai ki kuch bol jaye (No Hindu here has the guts to speak out)," says Pundhir. "When our government (in UP) comes in 2017, we shall see how they commit atrocities."

Pundhir says Hindus are terrified to walk through Reti Chowk in Deoband. The Hindus of Reti Chowk, however, own about 40 per cent of the shops in the market and say they have never seen communal clashes in the area, except for a fw skirmished after the Babri Masjid was brought down by the BJP in 1992.

"Threat to Hindus? Who said? May be due to polls, some people are spreading lies," says Praveen Kumar of Praveen Jewellers.

"I am here for 35 years. Muslims and Hindus live here in harmony," says Rajiv Kumar of Rajiv Medical Store.

Despite this, Pundhir says, "Hindu traders are migrating out of fear".