Masked Assailants Stab Muslim Youth To Death in Karnataka
A day after the murder of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) youth leader in Karnataka state, 24-year-old Muslim youth Muhammed Fazil was chased, brutally beaten, and stabbed to death near a clothing store by four masked assailants.
CCTV footage of the attack shows four masked men beating Fazil with a stick and stabbing him even after he collapsed.
Muslim groups have alleged that members of the militant Hindu supremacist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) carried out the brutal attack against an innocent Muslim as “revenge” for the BJP leader’s death. BJP is the political affiliate of RSS. Rishi Kumar Swami, a Hindu supremacist leader, went as far as to claim that he would be “happy” if Hindus had killed Fazil.
“If that was (murder of Fazil in Mangalore) done by our people then I’m happy, and 9 heads will be pending. There must be 10 heads against 1 head,” he said. “If police cannot encounter the accused, then give us the guns, we will show you how it’s done.”
However, while Karnataka Chief Minister and BJP member Basavaraj Bommai has gone out of his way to offer condolences and monetary compensation to Nettaru’s family, he has made no such effort towards Fazil’s family, highlighting normalized Hindu supremacy in India.
Twitter Reports That India Made Most Requests To Remove Tweets By Journalists, Media Outlets
In its 20th Transparency Report, Twitter reported that India topped the list of countries submitting legal demands for takedowns of tweets by journalists and media outlets, with 114 demands submitted between July and December 2021.
“There was a steady increase in actions taken on verified journalists and news outlets,” Twitter said.
Twitter reported it received 326 legal demands to remove content from verified journalists and media outlets worldwide. Second to India was Turkey (87), followed by Russia (55).
In total, however, India made a staggering 3,992 legal demands to remove content from Twitter, including users who were not verified journalists.
In the same report, India is listed as the number 2 country seeking account information requests from Twitter, second to the United States. India had also topped the list in seeking the removal of content by journalists and news outlets in the January-June 2021 report.
Indian Government Claims It’s Not Its Job To Track Attacks Against Minorities
India’s Hindu right-wing federal government made a startling revelation that it has “no data” on the rising attacks and hate crimes on minorities across India, claiming that it is not the central government’s job to collect such data but the job of the states.
“The responsibility of maintaining law and order, registration and prosecution of crimes against all citizens including minorities, rests with the respective state governments,” wrote Smriti Irani, federal minister for minority affairs and a strong champion of BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda. “As such, specific data regarding attacks against individual communities is not maintained centrally.”
Irani was responding to a question asked by Abdul Wahab, an MP from the Indian Union Muslim League party, while in parliament.
Irani’s response reveals the attempts at top levels of the government to cover up the hate crimes against minorities and downplay the major problem of Hindu right-wing violence in India.
