New Delhi, India – Nisha Mewati and her family had been living peacefully in northeast Delhi’s Shiv Vihar area – a mixed-neighbourhood where Hindus and Muslims lived cheek by jowl – for more than a decade.
But last February, their world changed. “And it changed suddenly,” said 22-year-old Nisha, sadness flickering in her eyes.
On February 25, 2020, she was going about her daily chores in the morning when she heard shouts of “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) – a Hindu chant that has lately become a rallying cry for murder – reverberating at some distance from her home.
“A Muslim family was being dragged from their house in an adjacent lane and beaten by a Hindu mob,” she told Al Jazeera.