AAP leader Amanatullah Khan recently shared a video on his Twitter page that is now going viral. In the video, a young man is seen being thrashed and kicked around by an angry mob of people, who push him on the road and rain kicks at him. One of them even tries to crush the man with a bike.
However, in his tweet, Khan gave the incident a communal spin, alluding that Muslims are being increasingly brutalised and subjected to violence under the BJP rule in the country.
“In the new India, new milestones are being set in this way. If your humanity is alive, you will be sad to see this. Like every other occasion, a man wearing a ” skull cap-kurta-beard” will be the victim of savagery. Though the BJP government has been incapable of providing development, they are foremost in spreading hatred. Sad!” Khan tweeted along with the video of a man being assaulted by a mob.
What is the truth about the incident?
Contrary to what Amanatullah Khan would have us believe, the assault against young man has no religious angle. In the video, the mob of people, who is seen attacking the man could be heard speaking in Marathi. There is no reference to the religion of the youth anywhere in the video. Clearly, the youth’s faith is not a reason for the assault mounted against him.
According to Divya Marathi, a Marathi vernacular daily under the umbrella of Bhaskar Group, the incident pertains to the Amravati district in Maharashtra. On June 15, 2021, a bike parked outside the residence of a person named Mahendra Basavanathe was rammed by a speeding four-wheeler and dragged along for about 2 km.
The onlookers took note of the incident and quickly pursued the driver. When they intercepted his car and accosted the driver, Mohammad Faizan, they found him driving under the influence of alcohol. Enraged that he was in an inebriated state and causing damages to people’s property, the angry mob of people pulled him out of the car, made him lie on the road, and thrashed him. He was handed over to the police later.
As per reports, there was no religious motivation for the crowd to attack the intoxicated driver. They had simply attacked him because he was driving under the influence of alcohol and had caused damages to the bike.
Yet, AAP leader Amanatullah Khan falsely gave a communal flair to the incident, alleging that the man was beaten by the mob because he was an observant Muslim who dutifully wore skull cap, a kurta and grew a beard.
The Ghaziabad fake hate crime: Incident where the usual suspects falsely communalised an assault incident to defame ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans
The incident of falsely communalising an incident reminds one of the recent Ghaziabad fake hate crime. On June 5, 2021, Abdul Samad from Ghaziabad was thrashed by Parvez Gujjar, Aarif, Adil, Mushahid, Kallu and a few others for selling an amulet to the prime accused which allegedly had ‘adverse effects’ on his family.
Days later, Alt News co-founder Muhammed Zubair uploaded a muted video (which now stands deleted) of the incident where the victim was being assaulted and Tweeted that the man was threatened at gunpoint, beaten, assaulted and the perpetrators forcefully chopped off his beard, adding claims that the accused forced the man to chant Jai Shri Ram.
Even though the Ghaziabad Police issued a clarification, dismissing the claims that the assault was a hate crime, the left-liberal ‘intellectuals’ and media portals continued to amplify that Samad was beaten for being a Muslim. It was later revealed that a nefarious attempt was made to defame ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans. The police arrested Samajwadi Party leader Ummed Pahalwan, who confessed to having used the Ghaziabad crime by giving it a false communal angle to gain political mileage ahead of the UP state assembly elections.
UP Police’s investigation has found that there was no religious angle in the crime as the victim and accused were known to each other and the case was that of personal animosity. While Zubair, Rana Ayyub, The Wire, Salman Nizami, Maksoor Usmani, Sama Mohammad and Saba Naqvi have been booked for spreading misleading and fake news, Twitter has been booked by the Ghaziabad police for the lack of action against these seven and allowing usage of its platform to spread fake news.
