Mob attack survivor tells of vicious beating

Zubair provided his version of events at a relative's home in another part of the capital

NEW DELHI (Web Desk) – Mohammad Zubair was on his way home from a local mosque in northeast New Delhi when he came across a large crowd. He turned towards an underpass to avoid the commotion; it proved to be a mistake.

Within seconds, he was cowering on the ground surrounded by more than a dozen young men, who began beating him with wooden sticks and metal rods. Blood flowed from his head, spattering his clothes. The blows intensified. He thought he would die.

Zubair provided his version of events at a relative s home in another part of the capital, his head wrapped in bandages.

"Twenty to twenty-five people started beating me, the rest were standing by as if they were watching a show. There were thousands behind them, they kept hitting me... nobody came forward to save me. Somehow, some people came from the other side, I was like unconscious. I didn t have much consciousness... my clothes were drenched in blood."

"(At that moment) I felt that those people (mob) would not leave me, they will kill me and I would not survive. The way they were shouting communal slogans at me  Jai Sri Ram  (Hail Hindu Lord Ram) and  Kill the Mullah , so, I thought I will not survive. And this is only a blessing of Allah that I am alive and sitting here."

"They saw I was alone, they saw my cap, beard, shalwar kameez (Indian traditional attire) and saw me as a Muslim, they just started attacking, shouted slogans... I had not said anything to them, I did not do them any harm."

"I could feel that some people had lifted me, they were carrying me and shielding me from the stone pelting that was happening from behind them."

The mid-afternoon attack on Monday, captured in a dramatic series of photographs, came against a backdrop of tension and violence.

Near the area of the Indian capital where it occurred, Muslim and Hindu protesters had been fighting pitched battles for hours across a concrete and metal barrier that divided the main thoroughfare, throwing rocks and primitive petrol bombs.

But the sight of a mob screaming pro-Hindu slogans suddenly turning on an unarmed individual, apparently because he was a Muslim, was a sign that growing tensions between members of India s two dominant religions may be hard to contain.