The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act has exposed the deep faultlines within the country. The protests against the CAA have a deep anti-Hindu taint to them and we have witnessed a persistent effort to weaponize the radical sentiments within specific sections of the minority community. Recently, a doctor from Kerala was forced to resign from the hospital after usual suspects launched a campaign against him for his support towards the CAA and the deportation of illegal immigrants. And now, another instance of Islamic bigotry has surfaced. Madhur Singh, popular on the internet as ‘ThePlacardGuy’, has now received death threats on Instagram for a post against the implementation of Sharia Law in the country.
In a story on the social media platform, Madhur (ThePlacardGuy) had said, “They know, Modi is going to implement Uniform Civil Code and it’ll crush their hopes of implementing Sharia Law in the country.” He was referring to a video where one of the female anti-CAA protesters was speaking against the NDA government’s efforts towards criminalizing the nefarious Islamic tradition of Triple Talaq and said that
“They’re trying to interfere in Islamic laws, we Muslims live as per Islamic laws”. Madhur added, “That’s what they are scared about and that’s why they’re creating all this ruckus.”
In response to the Instagram story, Madhur started receiving a torrent of abuses. One of the particularly disturbing responses came from one user with the username ‘iiimaaaaad’ (imad). In a private message, Imad told Madhur using a slew of expletives why should he bother if Muslims are following Sharia law. Then, in a thinly veiled death threat, he said, “And btw take care of your life, I hope u don’t get your throat slit like kamlesh tiwari.”
Kamlesh Tiwari was an outspoken Hindu Activist who was brutally murdered by Jihadists for blaspheming against Islam. He was stabbed 15 times. The post-mortem report suggested that there were two deep cut marks on the neck which pointed towards attempts to slit his throat. It appears obvious that Instagram user imad, who is a resident of Noida, was suggesting a similar fate for Madhur (ThePlacardGuy) due to his criticism of the anti-CAA protests.
After receiving the threat, Madhur shared a screenshot of the same with his followers on the social media platform. It opened the doors for more abuse and threats. All the threats were ridden with the vilest of unspeakable abuse.
They were directed not only towards Madhur himself but also for the women in his family. Some of the abuses appeared to come from ostensibly fake accounts with no followers or posts.
Read: #DoVoteForModi: Meet the guy who held message of ‘Vote for Modi’ at some of the unlikeliest places
It is important to remember here that the entire series of abuse began because Madhur raised his objection to Sharia Law. The user which gave the Kamlesh Tiwari threat has seemingly deactivated his account.
OpIndia got in touch with Madhur Singh following his ordeal. He told us that he has been receiving tons of abuses on the platform, so much that he has had to restrict certain features on his account that prevents everyone from commenting on his posts. He suspects that the accounts which abused him for sharing the Kamlesh Tiwari threat with his followers may well be Imad’s friends or it might even be him using fake accounts.
Madhur told us that he didn’t have a great many followers on Instagram but since he has started posting pro-CAA content on the social media platform, his number of followers has grown exponentially. And since his audience has grown, he has started receiving a lot of threats and abuses for his political stance. Madhur told us that he intends to file an FIR in the current matter and will do so by the end of the day.
‘ThePlacardGuy’ also told us that his account is locked on Twitter since the 12th of January so he cannot tweet about his ordeal. He told us that his Twitter account was locked because people started reporting his tweets from a year ago. After the Pulwama Attack, he, along with others, had launched an initiative called ‘clean the nation’. In one of the tweets, he had mentioned the email address for the initiative. That particular tweet was reported for a violation of privacy, he told us. He has appealed against it but to no avail.
Madhur Singh is an ardent support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has led innovative placard campaigns for his reelection in 2019. During the campaign, his car was attacked in a Muslim-dominated area of Old Delhi and he was threatened by supporters of the Congress party. “Let Congress come to power, we will teach you folks a lesson,” he was told.
