Tue 22 February 2022:
Social media giant Twitter has removed a cartoon by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that showed Muslim men in skull caps being hung by a noose.
The party’s unit in western Gujarat state had posted the cartoon on its official social media account hailing a special court in the state for sentencing 38 convicts to death for a series of bombings that shook the city of Ahmedabad in 2008.
The caricature showed the men hanging by a noose with the words “Satyamev Jayate” (Truth Alone Triumphs) and also “no mercy to the perpetrators of terror.”
The post triggered massive outrage on social media, with people criticizing the ruling party for the “anti-Muslim” post.
“Cartoons were used widely in genocides of Jews in Germany & Tutsis in Rwanda. We expect nothing better from BJP, but should we assume that this appeals to BJP’s voters?” Indian Muslim leader and parliament member Asaduddin Owaisi wrote on Twitter.
Sanjay Jha, the former spokesman for India’s main opposition party the Indian National Congress, also criticized the ruling party.
“So a hateful advertisement against Muslims was backed by the BJP in Gujarat. Twitter has removed it. This is New India?” he wrote on Twitter.
He also said that “all those who have voted for BJP” and Prime Minister Narendra Modi “are stakeholders in the disintegration of our secular democracy.”
Social activist Mujahid Nafees, who also runs an NGO for the minority community’s welfare, claimed the BJP always targets the country’s minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians, for political gains.
“The BJP had published the cartoon with the sole purpose of reigniting polarisation in Uttar Pradesh, where elections are underway. This is an attempt to communalise the issue of terrorism. The BJP believes in divide and rule,” he alleged.
‘India on path to Muslim genocide’
Calls across India for anti-Muslim violence – even genocide – are moving from the fringes to the mainstream, while Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his top leaders keep silent, warned a recent report published in The New York Times.
“The hate speech is stoking communal tensions in India where small triggers have incited mass-death tragedies,” the report written by a team of Times’ reporters said, pointing out that Hindu monks’ agenda already resonates with increasingly emboldened vigilante groups.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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