Under Adityanath, some crimes enjoy the protection of the Uttar Pradesh police

Tara Chand, born into a Dalit family, became Mohammad Tahir in jail where he spent four years for allegedly murdering his wife’s lover. There he met some Muslim men who helped him get access to a lawyer and finally secure his bail.

“I used to read the namaz before going to jail – it would soothe my heart,” he told me when we met one August evening at his house, which has neither electricity nor running water, in a Dalit colony on the outskirts of Meerut. “In jail, my faith became even stronger.”

In June, when he came home on parole, sporting a beard and a skull cap, scores of Hindu vigilantes landed up at his house and beat him up, he alleged. “If you go to the mosque, we will slit your throat and if you wear a skull cap, we will smash your head,” he recalled the men telling him.

When the police arrived, they took him to the nearby police outpost at Maukhas, where the Hindu vigilantes demanded that his beard be chopped off. Tahir alleged: “The police officer told me: ‘Mulla ji, daadhi halki karwa lo.’” Trim your beard.

A trimmer was arranged at the police station, Tahir said, and his…

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