India / Hijab-clad student in Bengal college 'harassed' by Jai Shri Ram chanting men

A 23-year-old hijab-clad student of a medical college in north Bengal was allegedly threatened and intimidated by a group of 10-12 men chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' inside the institution campus on Saturday.

"I along with a friend around 10 PM were returning from the canteen after dinner when we saw a group of 10-12 men standing on the road. We were walking on our own but after noticing my attire they started shouting 'Jai Shreei Ram' while pointing fingers at us. Later they started thumping their feet to intimidate us. We immediately ran away to save ourselves," said the final-year medical student.

The student maintained that she had never seen the accused in the college campus earlier. The local police initially refused to take her complaint but later asked her to remove the word 'threatened' from the FIR, she said. The FIR, though, was finally filed the next day with the word added.

"I am a hijab-wearing Muslim, I always wear this attire. I have never faced such harassment in my life. There was no one in the street that day to save us. Is this how we have to live now?" she added. 

This is the fourth such incident that has come to light since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's massive victory in the Lok Sabha elections.

In Begusarai, a drunk man asked a street vendor his name and then shot him in the back on learning that he is a Muslim. In a similar incident of hate crime, a 25-year-old Muslim man was beaten up by a group of men, who allegedly asked him to remove his skull cap and told him to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'.

These incidents come in the backdrop of Modi's speech on being nominated as the NDA leader. The Prime Minister had stressed that "we have to earn their (minorities') trust. We have to take along our fierce opponents. Without this the country cannot progress. There should be no discrimination over caste or religion. This is a challenge and we have to do this."

He had also underlined that his second term as Prime Minister will be about "sabka sath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas (alongside all, development for all, trust of all)".