Chandigarh-The North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) strongly condemns the circulating video in which a person is singled out with the words “यह तो मुस्लिम है, दो डंडे और मारो” “She is Muslim, so hit her two more times.” That sentence is not a slip of anger. It is an open admission that faith itself was treated as a reason for extra punishment. No democratic society can accept a second, unofficial tariff of violence based on religion.
Releasing the statement, NAPA Executive Director Satnam Singh Chahal said Police exist to protect every citizen under the same law. When officers, or those acting with their knowledge, add blows because a person is Muslim, they cease to be law enforcement and become a mob with a uniform. The Constitution of India does not give the state a thicker stick for one community and a thinner one for another. Extra-judicial force that is calibrated by identity is a crime, whether the victim is Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Dalit, or anyone else.
Chahal said that Sikhs know, from lived history, what follows when identity is enough to justify extra cruelty. “Hatred that counts extra blows by religion is an attack on every minority. We condemn this without reservation. Due process is not optional. Extra sticks because of faith are a crime.”
Chahal further said we demand that those who appear in the video, and any police personnel who took part or stood by, be identified without delay. A time-bound, independent inquiry must be ordered. Cases should be registered under the relevant provisions of law for assault and, where the facts support it, for hate-motivated crime. Any officer found to have participated in or tolerated communal targeting should be suspended pending inquiry. The concerned state government should state clearly, in public, that religion will never determine how much force the police may use.
Justice that is delayed or selective does not restore confidence. NAPA stands with every family that now fears the next blow will come because of how they pray. The law must be equal, visible, and swift.