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In pictures: India's damaged mosques amid rising Islamophobia

Indian Muslims have been subjected to numerous hate-driven attacks and in most cases, the aggressors are from the country's Hindu majority.

Reuters

A woman walks inside a damaged mosque after it was set on fire by Hindu mobs after violence erupted demonstrations against a new citizenship law in New Delhi, India, February 26, 2020.

India's capital New Delhi recently witnessed extensive anti-Muslim violence, in which at least 50 people died, mostly Muslims, and several hundred were injured.

Many local commentators, journalists and activists said the violence was preplanned, pointing fingers at right-wing Hindu outfits such as Bajrang Dal and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS), a paramilitary group India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a lifelong member of.

Indian police also came under criticism mostly from foreign observers as videos emerged on social media, in which the police was seen supporting Hindu mobs, encouraging them to attack Muslim neighbourhoods and also using brute force against Muslims who retaliated in some areas.

Since Muslims were the main targets, their mosques were also vandalised and copies of the Quran desecrated.

But this was not the first time that mosques were targetted by Hindu mobs. The country's history is littered with incidents in which mosques were burnt or knocked down by Hindu extremists.

AFP

Security personnel stand guard near a burnt-out mosque and shops following clashes between people supporting and opposing a contentious amendment to India's citizenship law, in New Delhi on February 26, 2020.

Ashok Nagar mosque was burnt on February 25 this year by Hindu extremists after the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which eases the path of non-Muslims from three neighbouring Muslim-dominated countries to gain Indian citizenship.

Many Indians blame Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political agenda, accusing him of taking the country to the path of Hindu supremacy while vilifying Muslims.

AP

An Indian Muslim boy stands inside a mosque burnt in Tuesday's violence in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.

The Babri mosque attack in 1992 is one of the most infamous attacks by Hindu mobs.

Thousands of Hindu extremists razed the 430-year-old Muslim mosque to the ground to clear a site for a proposed temple. The militants also attacked journalists recording the event.

AP

Hindu mobs stand on top of one of the three domes of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Sunday, December 06, 1992, after storming the security cordon.

In 2002, Hindu extremists violently attacked the Muslim minority in Gujarat by targeting their houses, properties and mosques. According to the official numbers, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed with more than 2,500 injured in the religious bloodshed.

Reuters

Residents of Ahmedabad walk past a burnt mosque on March 2, 2002, in Gujarat, India.

Twin bombs rigged to bicycles exploded in 2006 amid throngs of Muslims as they left afternoon prayers at Jama Masjid, a 17th-century mosque in Old Delhi, killing 31 people and leaving 100 injured, officials said.

AP

A Muslim cap and a lid of lunch box lie at the spot where a bomb exploded near a mosque in Malegaon, about 300 kilometres northeast of Mumbai, India, Saturday, September 9, 2006.

A bomb attack occurred in Mecca Masjid, a mosque located in Hyderabad, on May 18 2007.

The attack left 16 Muslims dead and nearly 100 wounded.

In 2013, then Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said two Hindu supremacist groups were behind the training of Hindu terrorists who carried out the bomb attacks in Mecca Masjid and Jama Masjid.