One Munawar Faruqui, who identifies himself as a ‘standup comedian’, in a recent show mocked the 2002 Godhra carnage where 58 Hindus returning from Ayodhya were burnt alive by a Muslim mob. In a part of the clip that has now gone viral on social media, one can hear him refer to the carnage as a fictional film ‘directed’ by Amit Shah and ‘produced’ by RSS. The clip has now been edited as seen below at around 6:30 mark to remove the portion. However, rest of the video does contain his mockery of Godhra carnage followed by communal riots.
“I was watching The Burning Train on TV. My father came and told me not to watch such nonsense and turned off the channel. I was like, ‘why so?’ He was like this is the video of Godhra kaand. And this is a news channel. I thought it is a movie directed by Amit Shah, produced by RSS… I don’t know…,” he says. Munawar Faruqui then refers to the news about 2002 Godhra carnage as ‘cartoon’.
Downplaying of 2002 Godhra carnage
Following the carnage, widespread communal riots took place in Gujarat where thousands lost their lives. However, even after all these years, there is a section of media which downplays the carnage and spreads falsehoods such as the fire was ‘set from inside’ the car. Many also claim that the fire was ‘accidental’ and the Muslim mob was wrongly accused. A Judicial Commission set up to enquire into the incident had found that it was indeed set on fire, and courts had sentenced several people based on this. Recently, a special SIT court convicted one Yakub Pataliya in the 2002 train burning case and awarded him life imprisonment. Prior to that, a trial court had convicted one Farukh Bhana and one Imran Sheru for setting the train on fire.
Munawar Faruqui
Earlier today, a police complaint was filed against Munawar Faruqui for hurting the religious sentiments of people with his derisive remarks against Lord Rama and Sita. Hindu activist and former Shiv Sena leader Ramesh Solanki, who filed the online complaint, has asked the Mumbai Police to file an FIR against him.
