DM Monitoring
DHAKA: Bangladesh was plunged into an unprecedented crisis on August 5 with the ouster of erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina following months of violent student protest. Looting and attacks were reported on leaders associated with the Awami League, the party of Hasina, as well as on their homes, shops, and businesses. Additionally, there have been numerous reports of attacks on the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh. At the same time, various old and unrelated photos and videos have gone viral on social media in India as attacks on Hindus in the neighbouring country. These have been debunked by Alt News. Several Right-wing social media users have been using these false claims to target the minority Muslim community in India.
Politicians have also played an active role in exacerbating the situation. For example, BJP MLA Nitesh Rane posted a tweet on August 5, asking if Hindus were being attacked in Bangladesh, why should Indians spare a single Bangladeshi in their country. He added that they would hunt down and kill every Bangladeshi living in India. Rane deleted the tweet after it had sparked a controversy. However, this is not the first time that he has made such an inflammatory statement. In January of this year, during the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha procession in Mira Road, Mumbai, when communal tensions broke out, Nitesh Rane made a similar incendiary statement, threatening to hunt down individuals.
The impact of inflammatory social media posts and fake news has been significant, leading to targeted attacks on the minority Muslim community in India. Criminals, motivated by a desire to avenge the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, have been attacking people living in slums in various parts of the country, branding them as Bangladeshis. Several Hindu organisations have been directly involved in these attacks, and the accused are closely associated with the ruling BJP. In many places, Bengali-speaking workers from West Bengal and other residents of slums have been harassed and attacked under the suspicion of being Bangladeshis.
On August 8, a group of Hindu extremists attacked garbage collectors in the darkness of night, accusing them of being Bangladeshis, and beat them up with sticks and rods. In a video that went viral, the attackers could be heard saying that these snakes were thriving here while their Hindu sisters and daughters were being raped in Bangladesh. Cow-vigilante and Hindu Raksha Dal member Daksh Chaudhary could be clearly identified in this video. He posted this video on his social media account with the caption, “We will not allow them to stay in this country anymore; if the government cannot remove them, we will.”
After attacking people living in slums branding them as Bangladeshis, Chaudhary released another video stating that he had no regrets over his actions. He made an open call, stating that they had started the process and that the youth and various organizations of India knew what needed to be done.
