An Indian-origin doctor named Sunil J. Rao has been terminated from his position at a hospital in Bahrain and arrested after posting pro-Israel comments on social media amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. He was working as a specialist in internal medicine at the Royal Bahrain Hospital in Bahrain’s capital Manama. He wrote a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) on the ongoing war and expressed support for the Jewish state as it fights with the terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Royal Bahrain Hospital issued a statement asserting that the doctor’s “tweets and ideology are personal and do not reflect the opinion and values of the hospital.” It further added, “This is a violation of our code of conduct, and we have taken the necessary legal actions, and his service has been terminated with immediate effect.”
— RoyalBahrainHospital (@RBHospital) October 19, 2023
Royal Bahrain Hospital is a private hospital located in the Salmaniya area in Manama. The largest hospital in Bahrain, Salmaniya Medical Complex, is located at Salmaniya, along with several private hospitals including the Royal Bahrain Hospital.
According to the country’s Ministry of Interior, the doctor was apprehended by the Anti-Cyber Crimes Directorate. A statement on the government website read, “The Anti-Cyber Crimes Directorate of the General Directorate of Anti-Corruption and Economic and Electronic Security announced the summon of an Asian, 50, for posting tweets on X platform containing insults of a religious nature, in violation of civil peace and social stability that could affect society’s security and safety. The Asian was arrested and legal proceedings are being taken to refer the case to the Public Prosecution.”
He had already apologised for his remarks before the hospital’s response. He referred to his utterances as “insensitive” and conveyed, “As a doctor all lives matter. I respect this country its people and its religion deeply as I have been here for the past 10 years.”
I would like to apologized about the statement that I posted on this platform.
— SUNIL J RAO (@shilpasunil_rao) October 19, 2023
It was insensitive in the context of the current event. As a doctor all lives matter. I respect this country its people and its religion deeply as I have been here for past 10 years.
كلماتي و افعالي
The remarks were brought to the attention of Bahraini authorities by a user named Tanvir Ansari who highlighted the doctor’s religion in order to provoke his co-religionists and alleged, “This is a Hindu doctor working in Bahrain. He believes that Islam is a barbaric religion, Muslims are attacking Israel and Palestinians must be destroyed.” He tagged the country’s Ministry of Interior as well as the Information and e-Government Authority and asked them to “take note.”
Notably, the individual’s original account is blocked in India and he made the demand from a backup account which has a picture of Sharjeel Imam who called upon people to “agitate and cut off Assam and the Northeast from the rest of India” at an anti-CAA protest in 2020 and is presently behind bars. He was one of the faces behind the major Shaheen Bagh protest.
What the doctor actually posted
It is important to note that the doctor’s tweets were misrepresented by the extremist Muslim who twisted his words to portray him as anti-Muslim and against Palestine. He had merely denounced the terrorist attack on the civilians perpetrated by the terrorist outfit which left at least 1300 Israelis dead and thousands of others wounded including women babies and the elderly. Hamas also took hundreds of hostages comprising kids with them to use as bargaining chips in the violent dispute.
“#IsraelFightBack will do a scorched earth attack, plenty will be killed, displaced, Hamas will be destroyed (rightly so), then what? If I may ask,” he asked. His post was clearly anti-Hamas and wasn’t directed at Muslims or Palestine as it was deftly misrepresented by the radical Muslims to incite religious sensitivities.
He also reacted to a post by an Arab internet personality Loay Alshareef and voiced, “This is a very important question to answer, what is a proportional response? Which world religion allows for what was done to the Israelis? No whataboutery will help. What is proportionality? Capitulation in front of #HamasTerrporist?” He criticised the terror group for using religion as a tool to perpetuate heinous crimes against humanity and sided with Israel and its right to defend itself and retaliate after the unprecedented assault on its people.
Freedom of expression: Indians Muslims vs Hindus in Islamic Countries
There are unfair disparities when it comes to freedom of expression for Muslims living in India and Hindus staying in the Middle East. The former has the right to exploit the liberty and even to the point of abusing the latter and mocking their religion. Their vitriolic onslaught against the majority population knows no bounds, ranging from Muslim leaders to ordinary community members.
They share their disrespectful views on everyone from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to common Hindus, however, the same courtesy is not extended to Hindus in Islamic nations. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi who is the younger brother of party President Asaduddin Owaisi infamously announced in 2013 that if police were removed for 15 minutes, we (Muslims) would finish 100 crore Hindus. The comments gained him notoriety, but he continues to enjoy a public life and is an influential politician in his community.
The same sentiment was echoed by another leader and spokesperson of the party named Waris Pathan who issued a veiled threat in 2020 and declared, “We are 15 crores but be aware we can still dominate over 100 crore Hindus and imagine what we can do to you.”
Last year, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Nupur Sharma had to face death threats for merely responding to Taslim Ahmed Rehmani who was repeatedly making fun of Shivling in a debate on the disputed structure in Gyanvapi. She had quoted from revered Islamic texts but an edited video from the programme was later shared by regular fake news peddler Mohammed Zubair to dog whistle Islamists against her which resulted in “Sar Tan Se Juda” (beheading) protests across the country and multiple Hindus including Kanhaiya Lal from Udaipur, and Umesh Kolhe from Amravati lost their lives to fundamentalist Muslims.
Nupur Sharma has been forced to spend her life in secrecy since then while Taslim Ahmed Rehmani carried on to appear on debate shows and faced no repercussions for his bigoted comments.
The Chinese-funded Newslaundry columnist and extremist Sharjeel Usmani who casually calls Hindus “Sada Hua Samaj” (rotten community) equated ‘Jai Shree Ram’ to a war cry and alleged, that people who chanted the religious slogan were nothing but terrorists. He had termed Hindu society as completely rotten in a speech in 2021 while simultaneously claiming victimhood and oppression.
These are only a handful of instances of blatant Hinduphobia which is ever present on social media and in day-to-day life which is mostly incentivised and rarely challenged in the name of freedom of expression. Hindus, on the other hand, do not enjoy the same privileges and are always in danger of losing their lives or jobs due to Islamists.
The world is aware of the persecution of Hindus in Muslim-majority neighbouring states of India for being non-Muslims. The Hindus who live in the Gulf countries are at risk of losing their livelihoods and what they have worked for because their statement does not align with the expectations or displeases the majority community of that nation or their coreligionist in any part of the world as evident by the recent occurrence.
Meanwhile, fanatic Indian Muslims who harbour bigotry and hatred towards Hindus continue to offend and insult the majority population with near impunity, and they seldom ever face any repercussions for their actions.
Royal Bahrain Hospital and its ties with India’s KIMS Global
The Royal Bahrain Hospital is a part of the Indian-based KIMS (Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences) Global which has its headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. The healthcare organisation operates numerous hospitals and medical facilities throughout South India and the Gulf region.
It started off as KIMS Hospital, a multi-speciality hospital in Trivandrum which was launched in 2002 and expanded as the KIMS Global which went through an expansion in 2013 and opened centres in other parts of the state, Kollam, Kottayam, Perinthalmanna, and Kochi as well as in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Dubai.
Now the group has 23 hospitals and medical centres in several counties. They have 6 hospitals and medical centres in Bahrain, including the Royal Bahrain Hospital established in 2011.
