Indore: Wearing a black polo t-shirt and denim jeans, red vermillion powder smeared on his forehead, Balwant Singh Rathore, a 45-year-old cloth merchant, stood with folded hands and a bowed head inside a Durga pandal near the main bus stand in Indore, a major city in western Madhya Pradesh.
This Navratri, a nine-day celebration of the Hindu goddess Durga, Rathore was on a quiet pilgrimage, moving from one pandal to another across Indore, not just praying, but pleading: “Restore what was taken—not by failure, but by hate.”
Rathore’s plea comes after a Hindu right-wing group, founded by the son of a state legislator from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and vice president of BJP Indore, forced the closure of his clothing business because he co-owns it with a Muslim partner.
The group terrorised Hindu landlords into evicting the Muslim business owners from their rented shop spaces in the historic Sitla Mata Market, famous for garments, textiles and silk saris. It pressured Hindu employers to dismiss their Muslim salesmen, an escalation in the Hindu right-wing campaign to enforce an economic and social boycott of Indian Muslims.
Claiming they had not received any complaint, even though affected Muslims have submitted a complaint to the superintendent of police, the police have taken no action against Aklavya Laxman Singh Gaur, son of BJP MLA Malini
Gaur, who, traders allege, issued a clear ultimatum on 25 August: “Purge all Muslims from the market. These people are promoting ‘love jihad’ (Market se sare Musalmano ko bahar nikalo. Yeh log ‘love-jihad’ ko badahwa de rahe hai).”
Aklavya Gaur used the bogey of “love jihad”—a conspiracy theory about Muslim men tricking Hindu women into having relationships with them by concealing that they are Muslim—to justify the illegal expulsion of Muslims from the market.
Calls for an economic boycott violate several fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution—Article 14—equality before the law, Article 15—prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste sex or place of birth, Article (19)(1)(G)—the freedom to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business, and Article 21—the right to life and personal liberty.
As Islamophobia in Madhya Pradesh reaches apartheid-like levels, with the police doing little to stop the systematic discrimination against Muslims, the latest example being the Sitla Mata Market that dates back to the 18th century, Rathore and his business partner, Mohammed Harun, 55, remain united and are now working to rebuild their business.
Rathore & Harun
Rathore, who comes from a farming family in Ujjain, first met Harun 10 years ago during a shopping trip to the market. After he got married, Rathore said he started visiting the city more frequently and continued to meet Harun regularly.
Over time, the two developed a close friendship that grew into a deep family bond, celebrating festivals together and visiting each other’s homes.
When Rathore decided to settle in Indore and sought a new source of income, he discussed the idea with Harun two years ago.
Together, they invested Rs 51 lakh to open their shop in Sitla Mata Market last year.
For Harun, the road to opening this shop was a long one.
After poverty forced him to start working at the age of 12, Harun spent decades as a salesman, saving, surviving, and hoping. His dream of owning a shop finally came true last year when he teamed up with Rathore, combining their experience, trust, and hard-earned money.
In the first week of September, Harun heard from their landlord, who sounded sad and deeply apologetic while asking them to vacate.
“He said, ‘Harun bhai, this is a matter of religion, and you will have to vacate the shop before September 25, the deadline given by Aklavya Gaur,’” said Harun.
“The landlord is a good man, and he has only done this under pressure. He returned our Rs 11 lakh advance. He was crying when we were vacating.”
When we met them on the afternoon of 27 September, Rathore and Harun were looking for shops to restart their business away from the Sitla Mata Market. Their faces were soaked in sweat. Their eyes were exhausted. Their burden was heavy.
They explained that they pay over Rs 80,000 every month in rent, monthly loan installments, and to moneylenders. Rs 1.40 lakh goes towards the salaries of eight salesmen, three of them Hindu.
Now, all eight are jobless.
“Those families depend on us, too,” said Harun. “I don’t know what to say to their families and children.”
“Everything is at stake,” he said. “We owe Rs 15 lakh to one trader this month, and a similar amount to others next month.”
Rathore, standing quietly beside him, added, “People advised me to end the partnership. Open a new shop without Harun. But I chose eviction over betrayal.”
Hate Campaign
Traders said that WhatsApp groups were flooded with anti-Muslim messages calling for a social and economic boycott of Muslims. Article 14 cannot independently verify this information.
Members of Hindu right-wing groups stood in the market with banners with communal slurs, openly calling for their exclusion.
Although the persecution was going on for nearly a month, it came to light when Hindu and Muslim business owners, facing severe losses during the festive season, began protesting, prompting the local media to pick it up.
Although we could not get any confirmation from the Sitla Mata Market’s traders’ association, shopkeepers said 150 Muslim shopkeepers, including renters and salesmen, had closed their shops since 25 August.
The Hate Campaigner
Aklavya Gaur, 40, was last in the news when he and his supporters stormed a cafe in Indore in January 2021, accused Muslim comedian Munawar Faruqui and those performing with him of mocking Hindu deities, and filed a police complaint that landed them in jail.
As Article 14 reported in 2021 (here, here and here), Faruqui had committed no crime and had not even started his performance or cracked a joke. Encouraged by police inaction later in Maharashtra and Gujarat as well, Hindu groups stopped Faruqui from performing after his release from jail, we reported.
Police inaction appears to have played a major role in emboldening Aklavya Gaur to push the envelope of Islamophobic campaigns, which are now a path to political success.
While his mother is a member of the legislative assembly (MLA) from Indore, his father was Laxman Singh Gaur, Madhya Pradesh’s higher education minister after the BJP came to power in 2003 and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Laxman Singh was killed in a car accident in February 2008. His family believe that it was a political murder.
BJP insiders said that Aklavya Gaur is eyeing the mayor's seat in the upcoming urban polls, and he is stirring the communal pot to garner attention and popularity.
When Article14 reached out to Aklavya Gaur to ascertain what prompted him to launch an anti-Muslim campaign, his assistant, Lokesh Porwal, picked up the call and said, "Aklavya bhaiya is sitting in a puja, I can reply on his behalf."
When asked if they found any Muslims working in the market, who lured Hindu women with malafide intent, Porwal replied, "You can talk to Harshit Jain, he looks after the media."
Jain said, "We have been receiving complaints that Muslims are engaged in cases of love jihad."
Asked about the number of cases over the last two years, Jain replied, "There are many." He provided no further details.
Jain claimed that traders' associations had been complaining about the same issue, and several meetings had taken place over the past few months.
No Action Against Aklavya Gaur
Although Aklavya Gaur is known for harassing and intimidating Muslims, including the comedian Munawar Faruqui, and this most recent call for an economic boycott of Muslims, no police action against him has followed in either instance.
In this most recent instance, Rajesh Dandotiya, the additional deputy commissioner of police (crime) and official spokesperson of Indore police, told Article 14 that they could take no action because they had not received any formal complaint.
As per media reports, complaints were lodged with the police commissioner of Indore, Santosh Kumar Singh, by evicted Muslims on 15 September and 29 September, and the former chief minister and Congress Party leader Digvijaya Singh on 27 September.
When asked about the group complaint of 15 September, Singh told Newslaundry, “Police have not received any individual complaint from any individual who has been victimised.”
Article 14 reached out to Singh and Sudam Khade, the divisional commissioner of Indore. Khade told us to speak with Singh, who did not respond to calls and messages.
Dandotiya, the additional deputy commissioner, told us, “The messages or posts circulating on social media aren’t entirely true. No Muslim was purged on the basis of religion from Sitla Mata Market. We haven’t received any formal complaints from the victims, but some memorandums have been submitted, including one from a political party, which is under observation.”
A senior advocate from Indore, Ajay Bagadiya, countered, “Police are trying to hide behind the victim’s complaint. For example, if police find a dead body with bullets. Do they wait for the complaint to file a murder case? If a group of men were assaulting a woman in the market, would police wait for her to lodge a complaint and then take action? Similarly, if Muslims are being subjected to religious targeting, it's the duty of the police to prevent that.”
Repeated Efforts To Boycott Muslims
Since 2014, Madhya Pradesh has become a focal point for where Islamophobia has deepened significantly, with Indore at the forefront of this growing bigotry and repeated calls for social and economic boycott of India’s largest minority.
In 2021, a Muslim bangle seller from Uttar Pradesh, who was selling his wares in a Hindu neighbourhood, was falsely accused of harassing a Hindu minor and assaulted by Hindu men who said that Tasleem Ali was not to step into a Hindu area. Three years after the Madhya Pradesh police registered a criminal case against him and jailed him for 107 days, Tasleem Ali was acquitted in October 2024.
In 2022, five Muslim professors and the Muslim principal of Indore Law College were removed from their positions following protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, which accused them of promoting Islamic culture. In May 2024, the Supreme Court quashed the FIR.
A video of a local media outlet, which is circulating on WhatsApp, claims that members of a Hindu right-wing group, Hindu Jagran Manch, objected to a Muslim selling flowers outside Indore’s Bada Ganpati temple.
Another video from a different outlet shows a man calling for an economic boycott of Muslims at a garba—a dance celebration—“We have to boycott Muslims. We don’t have to go to their shops at all…Go to Hindu shops, promote Hindus.”
At the Kankeshwari Garba Mahotsav and Navratri Mela, organised by BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, Muslim shopkeepers were removed from their jobs after objections were raised regarding their faith, according to a report by People's Samachar, a Hindi daily published from Bhopal, on 24 September.
Two Muslims, Hamid Raza, 25, a Muslim professional from Bihar working in Indore, and a Kashmiri Muslim student, Aftaab Hussain, were beaten and kicked out of garbas in Madhya Pradesh, last month.
Raza, who reportedly passed himself off as Rahul, was booked in a criminal case for “impersonation” under section 319 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Hindu majoritarianism extends beyond Muslim targets.
On 29 September, a group of Hindu men entered the Bengali Club in Indore, where the Bengali community celebrates Durga Puja, and threatened the organisers to remove the non-vegetarian stalls serving fish as it hurts their religious sentiments.
‘It’s Like The Sky Has Fallen Upon Us’
Like Rathore and Harun, Sukhwinder Singh, 28, and Adil Chouhan, 30, invested in a garment shop in July last year but were told by their landlord to vacate the shop in the last week of September.
Now, they face an uncertain future, worried about paying rent, monthly loan installments, day-to-day expenses, and their children's education.
“Our families haven’t slept properly for the last month,” they said.
A trader from Sitla Mata Market, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that he was forced to sack four loyal and experienced Muslim salesmen just before the festive season.
“A man named Bablu Sharma, with a criminal past, would check Aadhaar cards and pressure Hindu shopowners to fire Muslim employees many times in a week,” the trader said.
A 65-year-old Hindu trader, who said he had no choice but to dismiss his two most trusted Muslim workers, said, “They said that since Muslims could potentially engage in Love Jihad, they should go. And anyone who doesn’t follow the diktat will be labelled anti-Hindu.”
Farhad Ali, 32, a salesman who spent a decade in the market, was told to leave by his Hindu landlord.
“It’s like the sky has fallen upon us,” he said, his voice cracking. “I have a Rs 10 lakh loan on my head, and have to pay Rs 20,000 as EMI. I also pay Rs 10,000 in rent. Another Rs 10,000 for my children’s education.”
“Before you hang a prisoner, at least you ask him for his last wish. But we weren’t given even that, no notice, no warning, just gone. Overnight,” he added.
The stories of Mohammad Rashid, 40, Shaikah Mazhar, 31, Wasif Niyazi, 25, and Mohammed Pappu, 22, are no different.
“The Constitution has given us the right to practice our religion and equality before the law,” said Niyazi, a salesman, the sole breadwinner of the family of five, who was sacked by his Hindu employer. “But there is no one to protect it. Neither the police nor the courts.”
“We have no place to go and complain,” he said.
(Kashif Kakvi is an investigative journalist who covers Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.)
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