India, March 19 -- It is unfortunate that a murder in a Delhi neighbourhood two weeks ago during Holi celebrations - it followed clashes between a Hindu mob and a Muslim one; the victim was Hindu - has been allowed to fester and become material for a communal campaign against Muslims. Posters have appeared in Uttam Nagar, and threats are being circulated on social media handles that "khoon ki holi Eid pe khelenge" (we will play Holi with blood on Eid). HT found the small Muslim minority in the locality, where the incident took place, living in fear and planning to leave their homes, dreading violence during Eid, which falls this weekend. Residents informed this newspaper that the communal campaign is being directed by "outsiders". The administration must immediately crack down on the hate campaign and increase police patrolling in the area to ensure these threats do not translate into action in an environment that the police (which reports to the Union home ministry) and the administration have allowed to be vitiated. The Delhi High Court has been seized of the matter, but the administration must not wait for the court's intervention. Law enforcement and ensuring social peace is its responsibility, and it must do its job - and be seen to be doing so - fairly and transparently. Festival revelry sometimes does turn violent - in Delhi and elsewhere. But those are mostly handled as aberrations, and the culprits penalised according to the gravity of the crime. In the Uttam Nagar incident, eight persons, including a juvenile, have been held for murder and under provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Now, due process should be followed, and the aggrieved party should wait for the court to ensure a just closure in the case, which involved two families that have been at odds for decades according to other residents. Religious groups or parties have no role in this, although the police's inaction is allowing them to turn a neighbourhood crime into a political instrument to spread hatred. Actions by the municipal authorities, such as bulldozing the accused's property in violation of Supreme Court directives, only serve to embolden groups that are looking to disturb social peace for narrow political ends. The Capital is still recovering from the 2020 riots, although all three administrations responsible for governance in the Union Territory (the MCD, Delhi government, and Union government) are from the same party, the BJP. In 2020, communal fire would not have raged in Northeast Delhi for three days and claimed 53 lives if the State had acted at the first sign of trouble. In Uttam Nagar, the same signs are evident....