Days after youth Kishan Bharwad was killed by Muslims for blasphemy in Ahmedabad, another incident of violence over alleged blasphemy has been reported from Surat in Gujarat. Reportedly, 2 college boys were beaten by a mob of Muslims, including two of their classmates, for sharing a post on social media. After one of the boys had shared an allegedly blasphemous post on social media, he had received threats from other Muslim students in the same college studying in the same class.
Reportedly, Sunny Pandey, a student of KP Commerce College in Surat, was beaten by some students and their friends after he had posted some ‘offensive’ content on social media. When Sunny’s classmate Himanshu Dubey tried to save him, he was also beaten by the mob. The incident happened at around 11 am on Friday near the KP Commerce College in Umra is Surat.
According to a report by ABP Asmita, Sunny Pandey had received death threats on phone from Muslim students studying in the same college. They had threatened him for sharing social media posts that were allegedly offensive to their religious faith. On 4th February 2022, a mob of eight to ten Muslim attackers surrounded him in front of the college and assaulted him and his classmate Himanshu. After this attack, the boys took refuge in the nearby apartment where they hid. They were saved as the police were present in the vicinity. Later, Sunny registered a complaint with the police against the Muslim students.
Later police arrested two of the accused, who have been identified as Saiyed Sohelali and Rahil Khan. Both are first-year B.Com students of KP Commerce College. The police have charged both the arrested under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with an intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506(2) (criminal intimidation).
Sunny Pandey said, “He was saying on the phone call that we will enter your house and kill you. He abused me. I said its ok, I accept that you might be hurt and apologize if I am wrong. I cut the phone call. I was not knowing that he will come to the college today to beat me. I came to college today. I attended the lectures. I completed my studies and as soon as I was leaving College, he appeared suddenly from somewhere and started beating me.”
The other victim Himanshu Dubey said, “There were almost ten of them. We know only two of them. Everyone else was brought from outside. The two, whom we know are from the same college and same class as ours. They had beaten us up very badly. They had called almost 8 to 9 people to beat us.”
A Hindu leader Narendra Chaudhari has said, “The boy has posted something on social media. The Muslims did not like it and hence they called him. They threatened the boy on the phone call and abused him too. The boy apologized saying that it is my mistake if you are offended. I will delete the video. And the boy deleted the post. Even after deleting the video, the next day they came and beat them up. Out of the ten people, only two were from the college while others were outsiders. Such violent activities are heating up the public mood in the nation. Even riots may begin in the recent future if this is not stopped here itself. We urge the police and the administration to prevent such incidents. Otherwise, the results of this will be very bad.”
However, police are saying that the assault took place due to personal enmity as the alleged offensive post was already deleted. Additional Commissioner of Police Sharad Singhal said, “The post was already deleted and the issue was settled. The incident has no relevance with any post as it happened due to some personal rivalry.” Similarly, DK Patel, police inspector of Umra said, “The student was attacked due to some personal rivalry between college boys and there is no truth behind the social media post.”
It is notable that after the Kishan Bharwad murder case, a series of such threats and violent incidents over social media posts have been reported in Gujarat. A youth from Anand had recently received similar death threats on a phone call.
