As the entire nation was mourning the deaths of their close ones, some social media handles with an earlier history of manufacturing and peddling fake news and Hindutva propaganda conspicuously started blaming Muslims for an alleged ‘sabotage’.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The Muslim community has often been subjected to a targeted attack whenever tragedy strikes involving the loss of human lives. Finding a scapegoat is a time-tested strategy to divert attention and what better ways are there than to malign a community and sow a ‘culture of fear.’ India has seen it all whether it be the spread of Covid-19 or the recent train accident in Odisha’s Balasore that has claimed 275 lives and injured more than 1,100 people.
In the aftermath of the train accident also, Muslims became the target of right-wing social media handles.
As the entire nation was mourning the deaths of their close ones, some social media handles with an earlier history of manufacturing and peddling fake news and Hindutva propaganda conspicuously started blaming Muslims for an alleged ‘sabotage’.
A day after the tragic mishap in Balasore, the Twitter handle @randomsena posted a picture of the accident site with an arrow directed to a white building with a tomb and wrote: “Just saying – yesterday was Friday”. It was immediately interpreted by Twitterati as an indication that the structure was a mosque and it was a Friday when Muslims offer the weekly prayers — so Muslims might be involved in the accident.
The tweet soon became viral and garnered 4 million views and around 4,500 retweets. On the same day, another tweet was posted saying “Balasore is a hub of illegal Rohingya Muslims”. This tweet also got traction online and was viewed by close to two lakh people. Later, defending this post, the user used abusive words in a thread on Twitter and pointed out that he never mentioned Muslims in the original tweet. Rather it was the people who took up the charges on their own, media reports said.
Fact-checking website Alt News, however, busted the myth and found out that the structure was actually a temple run by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). A Twitter handle known as Prof. N John Camm, who claimed to be a cardiologist based in Germany, termed it ‘Rail Jihad’, reports Scroll.
Notably, all of these accounts were earlier found on several occasions to be posting inflammatory comments aligned with the Hindutva agenda.
Taking note of the communalisation of the accident, the Odisha Police tweeted, “It has come to notice that some social media handles are mischievously giving communal colour to the tragic train accident at Balasore. This is highly unfortunate.”
The police also appealed to the people to desist from circulating such “false and ill-motivated posts”.
“Severe legal action will be initiated against those who are trying to create communal disharmony by spreading rumours,” said the police.
The Twitter account with the name The Random Indian, however, continued casting aspersions on Mohammad Zubair of Alt News.
In their latest tweet, giving an explanation for their reference to Friday, The Random Indian wrote, “In 2009, the same train, Coromandel Express got derailed in Odisha, on a Friday. Same train, same state, same day. That’s what I meant by the ‘Friday’ reference but my tweet was misinterpreted by many. So, I’m deleting my tweet to put an end to all of this. But it was actually a Black Friday. I tweeted after reading the Firstpost report & took this photo from Twitter account.”
Consequently, they have deleted the post that started the controversy.
This is not the first time that Muslims have been found to be at the receiver’s end. Media houses owing allegiance to the BJP government at the Centre and other Hindutva outfits held Tablighi Jamaat culpable for the spread of Covid-19 in 2020. It was followed by the toxic campaigns on different ‘jihads’ — ranging from ‘Love’ to ‘Land’— mostly peddled by the Hindu groups. Balasore is just another addition to the campaign.
