A 30-year-old Muslim cleric, who taught Arabic and Urdu, was shot at Meerut’s Lisari Gate area around 6:30 am on Sunday. Mohammed Naeem, the Muslim cleric, narrowly avoided serious injury as the bullet grazed the back of his ear.
The accused who shot Naeem inside the mosque turned out to be his co-religionist, Mohammad Sartaj, reports quoting police officials said.
However, Islamists who are always on the prowl to needlessly communalise incidents and keep the bogey of “hate crime against Muslims” alive spared no time to leverage the incident to power their venom factories.
Several Islamists tweeted about the incident, giving it a glaring communal colour while also withholding a crucial detail about the case.
Zakir Ali Tyagi, an Islamist who refers to himself as a ‘journalist’ while being a closet Islamic fundamentalist, tweeted details of the case but failed to mention the name of the accused.
Another Islamist circulated the news and gave it a spin to blame Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati. He claimed that people linked the attack against the Muslim cleric to Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, who was recently targeted by Islamists online for his remarks on Prophet Muhammad.
An Islamist who often furthers talking points of the Congress ecosystem tried to whip up a communal frenzy by alleging that the Muslim cleric was attacked inside the mosque when he was teaching the Quran to the students, insinuating that it was a case of hate crime.
As social media was rife with posts insinuating that the maulvi was part of a hate crime against Muslims, the Meerut Police issued a statement clarifying that both the victim and the assailant were Muslims.
SSP Meerut Vipin Tada told TOI that Naeem and the shooter, Mohammed Sartaj, who is believed to have mental health issues, were acquainted and had a disagreement after a verbal altercation a few days earlier. Naeem, who also practices as a hakeem (a traditional physician), had treated Sartaj for memory problems. On Sunday, Sartaj arrived at the mosque, shot at Naeem, and fled, leaving behind his weapon.
