The “liberal” hate against anyone who supports Prime Minister Modi or believes in an ideology opposite to “Left Liberalism” is not unknown. The ‘secular’ politicians, activists and even journalists have often mainstreamed and normalised such vicious hate. One recalls that the Pulwama terrorist had released a video where he said he wanted to kill all ‘cow piss drinkers’, referring to Hindus. That openly bigoted pejorative too has been normalised by the intellectual class that has now started hating Hindus in their quest to hate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a similar shocker, a hateful troll who wants “Sanghis to be thrown in the gutter” has been normalised by the very intellectual class that had normalised terrorists like Burhan Wani and even Adil Ahmad Dar.
The troll, Amit Behara, posted a terribly hateful comment to an individual who merely said that his 90-year-old maternal grandfather watches Zee News and calls himself a proud Bhakt (A supposedly pejorative used by the Left to demean supporters of the Prime Minister).
To that, Behara commented that when his 90-year-old grandfather dies, he should “throw him in the gutter” and tell his kids why he threw him in the gutter. The comment inspired disgust from various quarters on Twitter with people mostly connecting his despicable conduct to how ‘tolerant’ self-proclaimed liberals are.
A sample of ‘Liberals’ in India. pic.twitter.com/WG6uBg9Sei
— हम भारत के लोग (@India_Policy) January 2, 2020
Once Behara started getting called out, he started posting even more genocidal and hateful content against Hindus.
I would like to formally apologize for recommending that we throw Sanghis (dead or alive) in the gutters.
No gutter deserves that sort of treatment. ?
— amitbehere (@amitbehere) January 2, 2020
A stranger: My 90 year old grandfather is Sanghi a.k.a a terrorist.
Me: Gutter mein pheek saale ko!
Sanghi Gang’s Moral outrage: He is 90 (irrelevant), family (again irrelevant). What they are really trying to say is respect his “terrorism”.
— amitbehere (@amitbehere) January 2, 2020
This fellow is right. One should NOT throw Sanghi shit-heads in the gutter.
It will ruin the gutter. https://t.co/S49KTB8ZJT
— amitbehere (@amitbehere) January 3, 2020
An older tweet by Defence Analyst Abhijit Iyer Mitra also started getting noticed where he had exposed this troll for the venom he harbours. In the screenshots posted by Iyer, Behara was seen hoping for a slow, painful death for leaders like Arun Jaitley. He had also spoken about how he would celebrate those deaths.
Just showing you what Amit Behere gets up to : wishing @arunjaitley a slow painful death like @manoharparrikar & pretending to be virtuous otherwise https://t.co/NM0K7ieC2Y pic.twitter.com/yM8JmkJewz
— Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) August 11, 2019
This venomous, genocidal and habitual troll has been normalised by several people in power who otherwise exalt themselves to be the paragons of virtue. Some prominent people, politicians and journalists follow this troll who wishes slow, painful death upon people and wants Hindus to be thrown in the gutter for their views.
Among the people who follow this troll is Nitin Pai who is the Director of Takshashila Institution and also a columnist with Left publications. Journalist Salil Tripathi and bigot Sudheendra Kulkarni.
Among his followers, are ‘activist’ Harsh Mandar who has often been caught peddling lies, even during the anti-CAA riots, and was a part of Sonia Gandhi’s NAC and self-proclaimed fact-checking website Alt News’ co-founder.
Several others who follow the troll are official functionaries of Congress, Aam Admi Party and journalists with various publications including Barkha Dutt’s MoJo.
BBC journalist and cartoonist along with AAP functionaries also follow the troll.
His followers include the President and Managing Director of Bloomberg Media, the Managing Editor of Live Law and Congress leader Sanjay Jha.
And more AAP functionaries.
Snuggled between AAP and Congress functionaries, was a Special Correspondent of Shekhar Gupta’s The Print.
Further, other than Congress functionaries, the Managing Editor of Outlook too followed the troll Amit Behara.
Amit Behara seems to be a habitual offender who not only gets abusive but also says criminally insane things to people who don’t believe in the same ideology as him.
Read: Pro-Congress troll Abhishek Mishra posted communally charged posts on Internet to earn money
The fact that prominent people not only from political parties like Congress and AAP but also media publications are legitimising this troll only goes to show the deep malaise that the people who scream the most about ‘intolerance’ actually harbour against anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
This phenomenon of political parties and journalists supporting vicious trolls is not new. One recalls how Congress supporting abusive troll Sanjukta Basu had claimed that the Pulwama terror attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad which claimed lives of 44 soldiers, could be an inside job carried out on behest of Prime Minister Modi owing to ‘criminal-politician nexus’. Sanjukta, in a bid to toe to the party line, had even gone on a sexist, abusive rant against ANI’s Editor, Smita Prakash, after Rahul Gandhi slyly referred to as ‘pliable journalist’ for her interview with Prime Minister Modi.
In fact, the then Congress President Rahul Gandhi had a social media outreach where he met his supporters including Abhishek Mishra, who was recently arrested for spreading fake news.
