The Arifs were looking forward to having their son home for Eid. Abram is a BCom honours student in Delhi University and like any 20-year-old with friends and studies to juggle, he hardly gets time to visit his parents in Bareilly. Over lunch, though, the excitement at the much-missed family meal soon gave way to anxiety as talk veered towards the recent spate of lynchings of Muslims in the country.Across India -- the heartland of UP, Rajasthan, Haryana and even far-off Jharkhand -- mosques saw the faithful come for Eid prayers wearing black bands on their arms as symbol of both protest and anxiety, a sense of foreboding looming even as people hugged each other and shook hands.“There really isn’t much to celebrate,” Israr Chaudhary said in Firozabad. “We have never been this fearful.” Tasleem Ahmad, an accountant at a Meerut hospital, said, “I haven’t been able to take the Ballabhgarh lynching out of my mind. A sense of injustice meted out to members of my community weighs heavy on my mind, but I can do little. People are being lynched just because they belong to a particular faith. India was never like that before.”In neighbouring Rajasthan, at least 28 lakh Meo Muslims, residing in various villages of Mewat region, including Bharatpur, Alwar and some parts of Haryana, observed ‘Black Eid’ on Monday to protest the sudden spurt in attacks on Muslims. In April, 55-year-old Pehlu Khan, a Meo Muslim, was lynched allegedly by cow vigilantes on suspicion that he was ferrying cows for slaughter in Alwar.At Akram Hasan's house in Badaun, the male members said they have to constantly fend off the worries of their mother and old grand mother. “My mother is scared. She has made all youngsters in the family promise her that they won’t react even if they are abused or misbehaved with,” Akram said.Across in Rampur, Asad Ahmad, an MCom student, added, “Everyone is dispirited and celebration is the last thing on anybody’s mind. It is about our safety and the democratic rights of Muslims.”Inversely, the feeling of insecurity also saw a strong sense of bonding among people who transcended class to stand with fellow Muslims. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an assistant professor of history and political science at Ashoka University, said, “Fear unites people. There was no organised campaign to wear black arm bands on Eid but it became successful even in remote areas only because people thought that it could be their brother or father the next time.”Meerut shehr imam Qazi Zainus Sajidin said, “Their anger is justified. Killing of people just because they belong to a particular faith is senseless and against the tenets of democracy.”Delhi-based businessman Syed Sharik Ali, who organised a silent protest in Bareilly, said, “We wanted to send out a message to the government. Like they do when they never turn up at any iftar party or wear a skull cap even as a friendly gesture.”Islamic scholar and former spokesperson of Darul Uloom Deoband, Ashraf Usmani, said, “Police have arrested Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar, but the riot-accused BJP MP and his brother against whom a non-bailable warrant is pending are out and openly hobnobbing with those in power. Law should work the same for everyone.”Beginning with the mob lynching of 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri in 2015 over suspicion that he ate beef, there's been a spate of attacks on Muslims in the country. The latest being the murder of a 16-year-old boy, Hafiz Junaid, on a local train in Haryana’s Ballabhgarh on Thursday. According to reports, there have been nine cases of mob lynching from across the country in the past three months.(With inputs from Sandeep Rai, DM Sharma, Pankul Sharma, Ashish Mehta)

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