By Aliza Noor
“I bought the flat from a Hindu brother, but I was forced to sell the place after some local Hindus protested and levelled allegations that remain untrue.”
These are the words of Rao Nadeem, a property dealer and chief of the Awam-e-Hind party in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. If you’re a Muslim, chances are that you might have faced some level of discrimination while looking a house or a flat in many cities in India.
Housing discrimination based on religious identity in India might not be unheard of, but this phenomenon is now taking root in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
Due to increased Hindutva assertion on the ground, instances of Muslims being denied houses or being excluded from housing societies have been rising. This, in turn, is exacerbating segregation and ghettoisation.
We went to Bareilly, Lucknow and Muzaffarnagar to show the systemic way in which Muslims are either finding it tough to get a house or have had to sell their place in the face of protests by local Hindus.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.