‘I didn’t go’: The last Muslim man in Indian town hit by religious strife | Islamophobia

Nanda Nagar, Uttarakhand — Every morning at 8am, Ahamad Hasan pulls up the brown shutter of his dry-cleaning shop on the banks of the Nandakini river, which runs through the remote Himalayan town of Nanda Nagar in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.

He neatly hangs dry-cleaned clothes in plastic covers on the pink walls of his shop. Then the 49-year-old waits for customers.

Until September 2024, by lunchtime, he would have had between 20 and 25 customers come by, leaving their…