BJP MP seeks action against Muslim lawmaker for praying at a temple
Date: 16 April 2021
Category: Hate speech
Nishikant Dubey, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Parliament member from Jharkhand’s Godda, threatened to move court if action is not taken against Congress lawmaker Irfan Ansari “for hurting the Hindu sentiments” by performing puja at a temple in Deoghar. He said Ansari should be booked under the stringent National Security Act (NSA), which provides for detention without trial for up to a year. Dubey asked Ansari to first adopt Hinduism and then perform puja if he is really a devotee of Lord Shiva. “Muslims are not allowed to enter or perform puja at Garv Griha [sanctum sanctorum] of Baba Baidyanath Dham Temple. Are Hindus allowed to offer prayer at Kaaba [Mecca]? They are not. The same goes with Baidyanath Dham Temple,” said Dubey.
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Actor Manoj Joshi asks if 'houses which raised Afzal' also raise doctors
Date: 19 April 2021
Category: Hate speech
Bollywood actor Manoj Joshi faced an intense backlash from netizens after his tweet targeting Muslims went viral on social media. The 55-year-old took to his Twitter handle to share a one-liner which did not go down well with people. "Do the houses which were raising Afzals, also raise doctors someday?” he tweeted in Hindi.
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Vadodara BJP leaders object to Muslim volunteers at crematorium
Date: 16 April 2021
Category: Hate speech, discrimination
BJP leaders in Vadodara objected to the presence of Muslim volunteers at the Khaswadi crematorium in the city — which was overburdened with bodies since the second wave of Covid-19. The incident occured on April 16, when some BJP leaders of the party’s Vadodara unit, including its president Dr Vijay Shah, had reached the crematorium to participate in the last rites of a party leader. The leaders objected to the presence of a Muslim man, who had been preparing the pyre with the wood and cow dung cakes for the burial. Shah told the Vadodara Municipal Corporation to ensure that Muslims are not allowed to enter the crematorium. “We learnt that he is a contractor supplying wood and dung cakes but he has sublet a contract or appointed more Muslim youth to work in the crematorium, which is wrong. Volunteering for good work is one thing but getting into religious rituals when you have no knowledge of it is not welcome… We have told the VMC that the person, who is given the contract for the supply of wood and cow dung could deliver it outside the crematorium. He does not need to be inside,” Shah told The Indian Express.
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Outrage on Twitter against Youtube page promoting anti-Muslim content
Date: 19 April 2021
Several Twitter users tagged Youtube about a page named ‘IF Vs But’ active on the site, which promotes false and divisive anti-Muslim content. The page has 1.43 million subscribers. Mumbai Cyber Police later wrote to YouTube to initiate action against the channel following a complaint by a city-based advocate alleging that it posts falsehood and hate content against Islam and Muslims. Adv Saif Alam filed a compliant with the Cyber Police under sections 153 (A) 153 (B) 504 505 (1) 505 (2) 295 (A) of Indian Penal Code and 67 of IT Act demanding permanent ban on the account. The channel publishes derogatory videos against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and Muslim women. A similar case was also filed against the channel in Hyderabad to take against the content creators.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtlMGqP8FrbGcVykC25bBGA/videos
https://twitter.com/imMAK02/status/1383709124009988097
After abrogation of Article 370, Muslim representation in J&K government drops drastically
Date: 31 July 2020
After the abrogation of Article 370, of the 66 top bureaucrats in Muslim-majority J&K, 38 are from other states. Of the 12 sitting judges at the high court, only two are Muslim. And there is not a single Muslim officer in the LG’s secretariat. A report by The Wire highlighted that after August 5, 2019, when the Union government stripped J&K of its special status and split the erstwhile state into two union territories (UT), local Muslim officers disappeared from key positions in the secretariat. “Today when you go into the secretariat you find non-Kashmiris and non-Muslims holding important meetings, making decisions and keeping the Muslim and Kashmiri officers away,” it quoted an officer of the Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS). ieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s secretariat does not have even a single Muslim officer. All the 13 officers in the Raj Bhavan family (members of the LG’s secretariat) are non-Muslims and non-Kashmiris. Sinha is a former Union minister and senior BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, there are no Muslim officers among the senior staff of chief secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, director-general of police (DGP) Dilbagh Singh and Chief Justice Gita Mittal. Of the four advisers to LG Sinha, two are Muslims, but they do not have roots in Kashmir Valley. Not one of the divisional commissioners or the police chiefs of J&K is a Muslim or even from the Kashmir Valley. On February 6 this year, the Union government abolished the J&K state cadre of the civil services and made it part of the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram union territories. Many senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and KAS officers believe that this may demotivate Kashmiri candidates from appearing in the competitive exams for the civil services, with the result that Kashmiris may completely disappear from the administration.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/government/kashmir-administrative-posts-non-local-muslims
Photos from Egypt, Indonesia shared with #BanRamzanGatherings in India
Date: 17 April 2021
Category: Hate speech
Supporters of BJP began trending the hashtag #BanRamzanGatherings. Two pictures of mass namaz in public were widely shared since Ramzan began on April 14. A simple reverse image takes one to a report in Arab News where the picture has been used as a file photo and credited to AFP. The caption states that the image was shot in Old Cairo’s historic Amr Ibn Al-Aas mosque. A second search for the photograph on Getty Images revealed that it dates back to June 5, 2019. “Egyptian Muslims perform the Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan,” reads the image description. The second image was found in an article on NPR from last year. It said that people gathered to offer namaz in Lhokseumawe, in the religiously conservative province of Aceh, Indonesia despite coronavirus concerns. A third picture, which was originally shot in the UK in 2018, was also circulated with the claim that it was a Ramzan gathering in India in 2021.
Sources:
https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/ramadan-celebrations-india-images-fact-check#read-more
Name boards written in Arabic destroyed in Calicut
Date: 20 April 2021
CAtegory: HAte violence
Several name boards put up by a private company in Calicut, Kerala, which had the name of the company written in Arabic as well as English, were destroyed by anti-social elements.
Prior to the attacks, the company had received threatening phone calls and suffered cyber attacks from Sangh Parivar groups. The boards, which belong to the Humax lighting company, were destroyed at seven bus stops in the city. An online campaign alleging that the boards belonged to KSEB, the Kerala State Electricity Board, was also active. KSEB denied that the boards had been put up by them.
Sources:
https://www.doolnews.com/kseb-board-in-arabic-what-is-the-truth-behind-the-propaganda-454.html
Application Seeks ASI Test at Agra's Jahanara Mosque
Date: 15 April 2021
An application was filed before a Mathura court seeking a ground radiology test by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) at the Jahanara mosque in Agra (popularly known as the Jama Masjid, Agra) to find out if idols of Hindu god Krishna are buried under it. The application was filed as part of a civil suit filed earlier this year on behalf of the deity Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajmaan, saying possession of the land where the Shahi Idgah in Mathura is located should be handed over to the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust, LiveLaw reported. The idgah, the civil suit claims, was built after Emperor Aurangzeb encroached into the Krishna janmabhoomi (Krishna’s birthplace) and destroyed a temple there.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/law/krishna-janmabhoomi-case-application-seeks-asi-test-at-agras-jahanara-mosque
Murder of ex-sarpanch’s husband in Madhya Pradesh communalized
Date: 23 March 2021
Category: Hate speech
Communal tension prevailed followed by curfew in Lateri tehsil of Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha district on Sunday night after a standoff between members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and local residents over the death of the husband of a former sarpanch. The deceased Santram Valmiki, 45, a resident of Murwas village of Lateri tehsil was mowed down by a tractor on March 18 allegedly after he complained about encroachment on forest land by a family in the village. The tractor was allegedly driven by one Rizwan. Hours after the death, police booked five people, including Farook, Irfan, Umar and Rizwan for allegedly killing Valmiki and subsequently arrested them. Hours after Valmiki’s death, local Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Sironj Umakant Sharma visited the village with his supporters and allegedly made objectionable remarks on the Muslim community as well as police officials over the death of Valmiki. A group of around 30 VHP men, who had come to pay condolences to Valmiki's kin, went to the demolishing site and reportedly passed comments on the locals and began instructing the officers to ensure that all houses were razed to the ground, said the police. Their comments added fuel to the fire and led to the heated arguments between the two groups, followed by alleged stone-pelting. Some residents alleged that bullets were also by the group of VHP men, and this all was happening in front of police and forest personnel. “Instead of taking action against the VHP men for creating unrest in the village, police registered FIR against locals on VHP men’s complaint for allegedly pelting stones under Sections 147, 148, 149, 427 and 336 of the IPC and detained nearly 15 persons on Sunday night,” said Anees-ue-Rahman, a community leader. After interrogation, police named nearly a dozen of villagers in the FIR.
Sources:
https://www.newsclick.in/curfew-MP-vidisha-face-Off-VHP-local-people-murder
Protest against CPIM’s Islamophobic promotion video ahead of elections
Date: 25 March 2021
A video released by Pu Ka Sa (Purogamana Kala Sahitya Sangham, the art and literary branch of Communist Party of India, Kerala) received intense backlash for its overtly Islamophobic content. The video had been released ahead of the Kerala state assembly elections. The Muslim woman in the video, who is portrayed in an extremely stereotypical manner, is described to be the “mother of an anti-national” whose dead body she had refused to see. The video was criticized for propagating the stereotypical image of a terrorist Muslim.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nOwwpBOOmE
https://www.mediaonetv.in/kerala/2021/03/26/pukasa-takedowns-videos-from-youtube
https://www.manoramanews.com/news/kerala/2021/03/25/pukasa-election-campaign-video-troll.html
Distasteful road safety awareness video leads to anti-Muslim misinformation on social media
Date: 25 March 2021
Category: HAte speech
A video widespread on social media shows a man stopping two Muslim men riding a motorcycle without helmets. This leads to a heated altercation and a mob brandishing swords and guns come to the bike riders’ aid. The people carrying weapons also seem to hail from the Muslim community. Twitter @Shrish_1987 posted a tweet thread where he wrote, “Watch this two-part video… Make sure the secularists watch this. When stopped for not wearing a helmet, they gathered over 25 people with guns and swords with just one phone call. Does the police pardon fines for a Hindu if they are on their way to the temple? The truth is, neither India’s law nor the constitution mean much to these messengers of peace. They only care about Sharia.” UP Express News reported that a mob gathered with swords and guns after Raghavendra Kumar asked two men to wear helmets. The video was clipped from a road safety awareness video produced by Bihar resident Raghavendra Kumar, also known as Helmet Man India. While the video was an attempt to educate people on road safety and the need to wear helmets, Kumar unnecessarily portrays the Muslim community in a negative light. In the past, he has made responsible videos and these can be watched on his YouTube channel. However, this one was in poor taste and the cause of widespread misinformation.
Sources:
https://thelogicalindian.com/fact-check/video-of-helmet-man-27587
Image circulated with false claim that Bangladesh freedom warriors forced to convert
Date: 30 March 2021
Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesperson and joint secretary (Konkan) Shriraj Nair recently shared a collage of two photographs. The first is black and white, featuring four women seated in a jeep and holding rifles. The other is a coloured image that resembles the first, this time with four older women posing with rifles in a similar fashion. The caption in Nair’s post read, “The picture at the top is of four Bangladeshi freedom fighters taken in 1971, during the Liberation War against West Pakistan. The photo below has been taken recently, 50 years on. The same women now in HIJAB in the same jeep, with the same rifles.” Following this, many social media users began sharing the two pictures claiming that the women were originally Hindu and made to undergo religious conversion after Bangladesh attained independence. One such post read, “Photo of atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh. The photo above was taken during the Bangladesh liberation movement of 1971 when they were Hindus. But by the time these women recreated the photo today, they had converted to Islam.” Music composer Srinjoy Mukherjee also shared it as a photo from the 1971 war. He wrote, “All this just to end up in burqas. Tragic.” Renan Ahmed, who had originally posted the picture on his Facebook page, clarified- ““The woman sitting next to the driver’s seat in the picture is my grandmother Rokaiya Ahmed. The other three women are Ayesha, Rashida Ahmed and Shahana Ahmed. This photo was taken by my grandfather in 1961. He died last year. They were posing with rifles just for the picture.” The photo in question had nothing to do with the 1971 war.
Sources:
https://thelogicalindian.com/fact-check/bangladesh-liberation-27561
‘Do you want Assam to be atmanirbhar or Maulana-nirbhar?’ asks Amit Shah
Date: 31 March 2021
Category: Hate speech
Ahead of the assembly elections in Assam, Union Home Minister Amit Shah asked the people of Assam to choose between an ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) Assam’ or ‘Maulana-nirbhar’ (dependent on Ajmal) Assam. “BJP wants to create an ‘atmanirbhar’ Assam — one where youths do not have to go to other parts of the country seeking jobs,” he said, addressing a rally in Assam’s Dispur. “But Rahul baba wants to make a ‘Maulana-nirbhar’ Assam. Now which one will you choose?” he asked, referring to the Congress’s alliance with Badruddin Ajmal. “What does the Congress manifesto have? To carry Badruddin Ajmal on their shoulders and open the border and increase infiltration,” he said, “The BJP has promised to make Assam infiltration-free — Assam’s culture, language, music, literature cannot be protected if there is infiltration,” he said, “But can a government with Ajmal prevent infiltration?”
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Vehicle carrying pregnant Muslim woman attacked by BJP workers
Date: 30 March 2021
A complaint was filed with the police in Pilathara, Kerala stating that some BJP workers attacked the vehicle in which a pregnant woman was being taken to the hospital. The woman was hospitalized. The incident took place at Edat in Kannur. The attackers vandalized her car alleging that it passed through the BJP roadshow held as part of the election campaign for Kerala assembly elections.
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BJP Minister Threatens Scribe for Report, Accuses Him of 'Miya Politics’
Date: 2 April 2021
An audio clip of Assam minister and BJP candidate for the upcoming assembly elections Pijush Hazarika verbally abusing and threatening a Muslim journalist went viral on social media. Nazrul Islam, a correspondent for the television news channel Pratidin Time, filed an FIR at the Jagiroad police station against the minister of state (independent charge) of urban development, health and family welfare . The incident took place on Thursday, April 1. In the nearly six-minute clip, Hazarika who is an MLA from the Jagiroad constituency in Assam’s Morigaon district is heard telling Islam that “he will break his legs and drag him out to the streets.” The reason behind Hazarika’s outburst is reportedly a video clip that was circulated widely, which he accused Islam of having misreported. Hazarika reportedly called Islam over the airing of the video clip containing a speech made by his wife and accused him of conspiring and colluding with Congress and its ally, AIDUF. Hazarika could also be heard referring to Islam as ‘miya’ – a derogatory term for Assam’s Muslims. He also accused Islam of taking part in ‘miya politics’.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/media/assam-bjp-pijush-hazarika-muslim-journalist-fir-threat-election
Muslim couple marrying Hindu foster daughter to Hindu man shared with misleading claim
Date: 3 April 2021
Several social media users have shared a picture with the claim that Muslim parents in Kerala married their daughter into a Hindu family. “She will be safe in the Hindu household,” the claim says. Several Facebook users have also shared the image of a Muslim couple giving blessings to a newly married Hindu couple. Muslim couple Adija and Abdullah had adopted a Hindu girl when she was 10 years old. They got her married to a Hindu man as per Hindu customs when she turned 22.
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