Violence has erupted in Haryana’s Nuh, which has a history of conflict. Following this, many questions have been raised about the failure of the police and administration. Nuh District of Haryana (Haryana) has a unique social environment and has poor performance on social indicators and crime records and is also known as red alert.
Located just 57 kms from Gurugram and a three-hour drive from Delhi, Nuh is one of the most backward regions in India. It is known as the “Singapore” and start-up hub of India. Only 51 per cent of women are educated in Nuh district, making it the poorest District in North India after Bharatpur in the state of Rajasthan, according to data from the latest National Family Health Survey. Nuh has the highest number of girls and they are also getting married early. One-third of its girls are married before turning 18.
Family planning, immunisation of children, nutrition of women and children and health of mother and child are the major challenges in the region, said Bashir Choudhary, who runs an NGO here.
According to the National Family Health Survey, only 15.5% of people in Nuh practice family planning, while only 2.6% use condoms. According to a 2015 NITI Aayog report, only 27 per cent of the district’s working population is engaged in work as a result of limited employment opportunities, illiteracy, lack of facilities for skill development and the unremunerative nature of agricultural labourers in Nuh.
Nuh ranks 14th out of 640 districts in India when it comes to its Muslim population and is the largest Muslim-dominated district in Haryana.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has included Nuh District in the list of Adarsh (backward) constituencies, but the District was earlier ruled by the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance government.
In 2008, Nuh was one of the 90 Districts selected for the multi-sectoral development programme in response to the Sachar Committee’s findings that there were inequalities in education, employment and earnings among Indian Muslims and other groups.
Though the number of cyber cases has been on the rise for the past few years, when the new pandemic struck in March 2020, Nuh accounted for more than a quarter of Haryana’s active cases in two months, said Narender Binder, a doctor from Haryana.
Officials are concerned that the region is full of cyber cases due to the twin bottlenecks of the state’s extremely low literacy rate and unbearable health infrastructure.
Nuh ranks high in crime, but none of its clashes in the last five years have been classified as communal riots. But, there are many incidents related to cow vigilantism.
It is known that an extensive network of gau rakshaks or gau rakshaks operates here. Traditionally, the area has been home to many pastoral communities that worship the cow. Nuh accounts for three-fourths of cow smuggling cases in Haryana.
Police data shows that Nuh has an average of 15 cases every month under the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan (HGSG) Act, which prohibits cow slaughter and consumption of beef.
The recent killings of Waris Khan and cattle traders Junaid and Nasir have drawn attention to the presence of cow vigilante networks in the area, particularly Monu Manesar, a prominent gau rakshak with significant influence.
Nuh, over the past three years, has been a breeding ground for cybercrime and is particularly known for cyber robbers, which include sexual harassment, fake job offers, honey traps with fake profiles on social media platforms, and posting advertisements with sales of various products.