The US has said that it is “highly concerned” at open genocide calls of Indian Muslims.
US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain said, Dehumanizing rhetoric was escalating the persecution of India’s minorities, creating a challenge for the United States.
Rashad was speaking at a three-day International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit in Washington DC during the panel discussion on Religious Freedom in India: Challenges for the US.
The discussion was organized by the Indian Working Group of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, claiming to be the world’s largest civil society collective on the issue.
“We’ve had open calls for [a] genocide [of Muslims] in India. We’ve had demolitions of [Muslim] homes,” Hussain noted, recalling, the Early Warning Project of the US Holocaust Museum had “designated India as the number two country in the world at risk of mass killings.”
Hussain said the “rhetoric” openly being used in India was “dehumanizing towards people, to the extent that one minister referred to Muslims as termites. When you have these ingredients, it’s important that we take note and we work to address the challenges that we face.”