Aisha, a law student, holds the Quran after reading it inside her house. — Reuters
“We can't express our religion in any way here, but they are free to do whatever they want,” said Muslim law student Aisha, 21.
She said that Hindu men from the village often shouted anti-Muslim slogans during festival processions. At least a dozen Hindus in the village denied that was the case.Aisha remembers when relations were better.
“Earlier they would speak very nicely to us, but now they don't,” said Aisha.
“If there was any problem at all, or someone was sick in the family, all the neighbours would come over and help whether Hindus or Muslims. Now that doesn't happen.”
'Empty out'
Sharfuddin Saifi, 38, who runs a cloth shop at a nearby market, was named in a complaint filed with the police by local Hindus over the cow incident last year.
After 16 days in jail, he was released as the police found he had nothing to do with the suspected slaughter, but said he found much had changed.
Hindus now shun his business. The money he spent on lawyers meant he had to stop going to Delhi to buy stock for the shop, which is largely empty. And he withdrew his 13-year-old son from a private school because he could no longer afford it.
“For someone who had never seen the inside of a police station or even dreamt of committing a crime, it's a big thing,” he said of the trauma of his detention.
He often thinks about leaving the village, he says, but tells himself: “I have not done anything wrong, why should I leave?”
Carpenter Jabbar Ali, 55, moved to a Muslim-dominated area in Masuri, closer to Delhi, buying a house with money he saved from working in Saudi Arabia.
“If Hindus could kill a Hindu police inspector, in front of a police outpost, with armed guards alongside him, then who are we Muslims?” Ali said, recalling the December incident.
He still keeps his house in Nayabans and visits occasionally but said he feels much safer in his new home, where all his immediate neighbours are Muslims.
“I'm fearful here,” he said. “Muslims may have to empty out this place if Modi gets another term, and Yogi continues here.”
Junaid, a round-faced 22-year-old with a goatee, comes from one of the most affluent Muslim families in the village. His father runs a gold shop in a town nearby.
Seated outside his home, he recalled playing sport together with Hindus. “When we were young all the Hindus and Muslims used to play together, especially cricket I played it a lot,” he said.
“Now we haven't played in at least a year.” He said he wanted to move to New Delhi soon to study at a university there. “Things are not good here,” he said.
Some Muslims, however, say they are committed to remaining. Aas Mohammed, 42, the owner of a flourishing tiles and bathroom fixtures business in a nearby town, has decided to stay in the village, though he has a house on Delhi's outskirts.
Mohammed helped arrange a lawyer for Saifi after his arrest over the cow incident. He is now lobbying to have the microphone brought back and fighting a legal battle to get a new mosque built.
“I will fight on,” he said. “I am not scared, but another term for Modi will make it very difficult for many other people to live here.”