GUWAHATI: The BJP on Sunday stirred a hornet’s nest by posting a now-deleted video on social media, depicting Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma allegedly firing a shot at Muslims in framed photos on a wall captioned ‘No mercy’.
One of the photos featured two people, including one who appeared to be Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi. Both were wearing white skull caps. At the end of the 17-second video, the Chief Minister is shown like a cowboy, replete with a gun and a cowboy hat.
The ‘hate’ video, posted by BJP’s Assam unit and captioned ‘Point blank shot…’ quickly went viral with more than 5 lakh views, triggering reactions from people, including opposition leaders. Following the outrage, the BJP deleted the video.
Congress MP and party’s general secretary (organisation), K.C. Venugopal said the video was nothing “but a call to genocide.”
“…This is not an innocuous video to be ignored as troll content. It is poison spread from the very top, and there must be consequences for this. There is no hope that (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi will condemn or act against this, but the judiciary must act and there shouldn’t be any leniency shown in this case,” Venugopal posted on X sharing a screengrab of the video.
Supriya Shrinate, Congress chairperson of social media and digital platforms, said it was evident from the video that BJP leaders are “mass murderers.” She asked if the courts and other institutions were sleeping.
The Kerala unit of the Congress asked why the BJP timed “this Muslim genocide” post with Modi’s visit to Malaysia, “when he is enjoying the warm hospitality of their Muslim leadership.”
“BJP has lost all pretensions that they’ve officially started giving open calls for minority genocide, that too by showing a chief minister who is under a constitutional oath shooting Muslims down!” the Kerala Congress said.
Trinamool Congress’ Assam unit wrote, “Imagine an elected Chief Minister miming point-blank shooting at Muslims in a party video so obscene that, after fierce backlash, it had to be taken down. This is what @himantabiswa and @BJP4Assam have reduced Indian politics to. Performative bloodlust, normalised hatred, and televised dehumanisation of Muslims.”
Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan said the Supreme Court should take suo-motu cognisance of the video and hold the BJP members responsible for uploading it to account.
“This is a serious criminal offence. Any opposition functionary putting up such a post would have landed him in jail under UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act),” he said.