AGRA IS STILL SIMMERING: South of Meera Husseini crossing in Mantola, the road grades steeply downhill into the ghetto where the Dalit population live adjacent to a huge open drain that reeks of garbage and excreta dotted with pigs frolicking in garbage bins.
The beginning of the lane comprises of a few Valmiki families. These are the staunch BJP loyalists. Further down the lane are the Mahaur households, and amongst these is Arun's ancestral house, where one of his uncles continues to live and also runs a small handloom carpet-weaving unit.
The sole handloom worker was agitated about Arun's killing. "The Muslims have killed him. They want us all out and they are buying up all the land around here," said one of these handloom workers, while refusing to disclose his name. He could not identify any houses that had been forcibly bought out by Muslims or the displaced Hindus , nor did he know any one himself but said he had "heard about it".
"But, this Shahrukh used to roam around with a revolver in his belt in broad daylight," says the worker. He again admitted that it was something he had heard but never seen himself.
Back in the marketplace, it is the members of the Jatav caste who outnumber other Dalits in the area. They run most of the small industries segment of Agra's well-known shoe industry and are mostly loyal supporters of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
"Mostly the BJP leaders refer to us as the Jatavs or Mahaurs, reminding us of our lower caste background but now, with elections close by, why do they suddenly want to include us in the Hindu community when they need our votes?" says Kamal Singh Jatav, a shoe-maker in Mantola. They do not support the activities of the VHP, considering it vitriolic to peaceful coexistence.
"We don't consider a VHP worker competent till there are some cases against him," says Rajesh Tyagi, the Bajrang Dal leader, with a smug smile. Arun, however, had none in his 22 years of serving the VHP. Tyagi himself has more than a dozen registered against him.
"There have been two other Mahaurs killed within the last two years — Subhash and Ravi. Subhash was killed because he objected to a Muslim youth eve-teasing some Hindu girls. The same thing happened to Arun. Ravi was trying to fight off moneylenders," claims Tyagi.
Analysts have claimed that the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar between Hindus and Muslims had an effect on the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, swinging a large number of votes to the BJP, which espoused Hindu majoritarianism. Mayawati's BSP won no seats in the election despite its earlier command over a large section of Dalits. If communal polarisation in Agra did unite all Hindus politically and electorally, it would impact BSP's influence in the area. Out of nine state assembly seats in the district, the BJP has two (both in the city), the ruling Samajwadi Party has one while the BSP has six.
Arun and his family lived here till two years ago close to his furniture outlet. Around two years ago, his shop was burnt down at night.
VHP regional spokesperson Premendra Jain said, "They had burnt down his shop and then Arun and his family moved out from that locality."
However, nobody could say why exactly the fire had broken out in Arun's shop. Jain and Tyagi later admitted that Arun and his family had in fact moved out to a larger house in a more upmarket locality — a move that could be attributed to his upward mobility.
Strangely, for people who had worked with Arun for 22 years in the VHP, both Jain and Tyagi kept referring to Arun's shop as a pharmacy. Later, it turned out to be a furniture shop.
This makes it difficult to believe Jain and Tyagi who seem to base their narrative on a plate of rumours and half-truths. When asked if there were any Muslims were organized as they claimed, they wondered a while and shot off a few generic names such as Muslim Manch, Islamic Foundation and Jamiat Islamia without being able to pinpoint the key people or at least their offices.
But, who said you need fact to brew a communal curry?