West Bengal BJP’s X post showing violence by Islamists withheld for ‘legal demand’ after Police ‘fact-checks’ it
A post by the West Bengal BJP has been withheld in India following a legal demand, possibly by the Bengal government led by Mamata Banerjee. The post by BJP was made amid of the recent incidents of violence in Murshidabad, where Islamists protesting against the new Waqf Amendment Act attacked Hindus. The post highlighted how Hindu festivals have been targeted by Islamist mobs in recent years.
“Doesn’t matter the festival — they just need an excuse to burn it all down. মমতা ব্যানার্জী-র দুধেল গাইদের শুধু একটা অজুহাতের প্রয়োজন!”, which roughly translates as “Mamata Banerjee’s milk cows need only an excuse”, the text of the post read, referring to the Islamists as the vote bank of Mamata Banerjee.
The post had a picture with multiple incidents of Islamist violence over recent times, with names of Hindu festivals mentioned, representing how Hindu festivals have been under target by Islamists to create mayhem via stone pelting, arson and vandalism.
Post by West Bengal Police
The post by BJP Bengal is no longer visible. A message from X says, “This post from @BJP4Bengal has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.
The West Bengal Police did an elaborate ‘fact check’ on the post. Taking each individual image from the collage, reverse searching the image and highlighting how they were from different festivals, some unrelated to Bengal and some images from other states during either Hindu festivals or from 2019 where Islamists had run rampage all over India, including Bengal’s Murshidabad, and organised an anti-Hindu riot in Delhi, in the name of protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
TMC leaders and workers have been posting similar images, ‘fact checking’ how the collage posted by BJP is allegedly ‘fake’ just because it did not have the exact pictures of the most recent incident of violence carried out by Islamists either against Hindus or against the State.
Bengal Police erases the Bengali text from BJP’s post
Interestingly, the Bengal police in their ‘fact check’ post, have erased the Bengali text posted by BJP Bengal. The text said, মমতা ব্যানার্জী-র দুধেল গাইদের শুধু একটা অজুহাতের প্রয়োজন!” which means “Mamata Banerjee’s milk cows need only an excuse”. The Bengali sentence was a reference to a statement made by CM Mamata Banerjee herself in the past, where she had asserted that Muslims are her vote banks and she will attend all events of the Muslim community because one should be prepared to be kicked by the milk cow when they consume the milk (Bengali proverb).
It is not clear why the Bengal Police in their post took special care to erase that text out. Maybe they did not want people to recall that particular statement by CM Mamata and did not want people to understand the actual context behind the post by BJP Bengal.
It is notable here that while the individual images in the Bengal BJP post indeed did not match the captions of the festivals, the post did not specify that it was regarding only the recent incident of violence. Rather, it was a comment on the general lawlessness in the state, where the BJP has been accusing the ruling TMC of being either too soft, or colluding with the Islamist elements to torment the Hindus.
The anti-CAA protests in 2019 too, had started in Murshidabad, Bengal, where Islamic mobs had attacked multiple trains and railway stations, causing a loss of hundreds of crores to Indian Railways and disrupting train services in the state.
Islamists attacking Hindu festivals and religious processions has been a constant issue plaguing many states. In Bengal, the outbreak of large-scale violence has been a consistent problem. Be it general or assembly elections, or even Panchayat elections, or Hindu festivals. The line often blurs between Islamist mobs and TMC goons because many TMC goons are Islamists or enablers of Islamists.
Sadly, the deteriorating law and order in her own state is indirectly ‘celebrated’ by Mamata Banerjee. Not only has she given open calls for large-scale protests against the Waqf Act and CAA then, but her police and administration have been failing to check the arson, vandalism and murders in Bengal done in the garb of such protests. On past occasions, she has made statements like ‘teaching Kafirs a lesson’, painting a target on the populace that does not vote for her.
After the deadly post-poll violence in 2021, in which mainly Hindus were targeted, she celebrated the “Khela Hobe” Diwas on the very anniversary of Direct Action Day, where Bengali Hindus were slaughtered by thousands by Muslim mobs at the behest of Jinnah in 1946.
What does the message from X mean?
Twitter, now known as X, withholds certain posts in countries if there is a formal court order or executive order for it to stop the circulation of that particular post. Similarly, specific accounts flagged for consistent spreading of false or misleading news, with a potential to trigger violence or law and order problems are withheld in specific countries as per request by the nation’s authorities. However, X is not usually obliged to withhold a post after a mere police complaint. So it is likely that the West Bengal government sent an official letter to X for withholding that post by Bengal BJP.
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