For several weeks now, some Muslim-owned shops in Aarla have opened to empty streets, say their owners. Longtime customers have stopped coming. At least one shopkeeper says he is preparing to down his shutters for good and leave in search of work.

This is the result of a social boycott, claimed Aabid Dange, whose family has been at the centre of the crisis. “No one comes to our shops anymore. We have had almost no business for weeks… I am planning to shut my grocery shop and leave the village in search of work,” he said. “We were attacked because we are Muslims, but instead of receiving justice, we are the ones paying the price.”

The boycott, announced on June 9, is the latest turn in a saga that began six weeks earlier: with a question about a missing utensil and an assault involving members of a radical Hindutva outfit.

On April 28, Aabid’s cousin Hussain Dange had asked two young customers who had borrowed utensils from his chicken shop where the pot lid was. Within hours, according to the family, a mob of 40 to 50 men had gathered outside; by the end of the evening Hussain’s left arm had been nearly severed by a meat cleaver.

What followed, the Dange family alleges, was a second ordeal – a police investigation they describe as reluctant and skewed, an attempt-to-murder charge that was added and then quietly dropped even after a hospital certified grievous, potentially fatal injuries, bail for the accused, and a celebratory procession through the village with anti-Muslim slogans. 

When 11 Muslim families marched toward the Bombay High Court’s Kolhapur bench in early June demanding action, officials persuaded them to return home with written assurances. But days later, the boycott began.

This account is drawn from the family’s complaint to the authorities, documents and medical records reviewed by Newslaundry, and interviews with the family, police, and others.

A dispute over a pot lid

According to the complaint by Hussain and his brother Saddam to the Sangli SP and the public grievance cell of the high court’s Kolhapur bench on May 29, the sequence began around 11.30 am on April 28, when six or seven youths from neighbouring Padali village came to Hussain’s shop to buy chicken and borrowed cooking utensils from Hussain. He says he did not charge them and asked only that everything be returned.

When they came back that afternoon, a pot lid and a serving spoon were missing. Hussain questioned them; the youths, who he says appeared heavily drunk, began arguing among themselves, and one threw another’s motorcycle key toward the shop before leaving. About 10 minutes later they returned, handing back the spoon but not the lid. Seeing they were intoxicated, Hussain says he decided to let the matter go.

The youths returned a third time about 15 minutes later, accusing Hussain of taking the motorcycle key and demanding Rs 500. When he refused to pay, they allegedly reached for a weighing scale and the meat cleaver kept inside the shop.

“I told them not to touch anything in my shop, but they started abusing me and threatening to beat me,” Hussain claimed. “When my younger brother Saddam arrived, one of the youths picked up the meat cleaver and chased him, trying to strike him three or four times. He somehow escaped. They stopped only when they........

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