A Facebook comment of one Naveen Kumar, nephew of Dalit Congress MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, caused a crude display of Islamic radicalism and intolerance on the streets of Bengaluru as a mob of thousands took to burning the house of the MLA and also causing extensive damage to public and private property. The mob-violence by Muslim mobs on the streets of Bengaluru led to 60 cops being injured. While one would expect the Congress to stand up for its MLA, the Grand Old Party displayed its sheer lack of spine as it took to name-calling his nephew, Naveen as someone who is associated with the BJP.
Crossing all lines of decency and sanity, and displaying their shameless perception of secularism, which is a synonym for “Muslim appeasement”, the Congress thought it fit to throw its MLA under the bus and leave him to fend for himself. The party also did not dare speak the truth about the violence, as doing so would alienate Muslim voters from its fold. Therefore, Congress did all in its power to downplay the criminality of the Muslim mob, even if that came at the cost of abandoning their Dalit MLA. Liberal media, which serves as the Congress’ mouthpiece on all such occasions, has meanwhile taken to portray Naveen Kumar as the ultimate villain and has also decided to take it upon itself the task of absolving the mob of their fundamentalist crimes.
India Today, whose Data Intelligence Unit is reportedly headed by the intelligent Rahul Kanwal, decided to publish a profile of Naveen Kumar, the infamous man who dared speak ill of the Prophet of Islam, even if as a retaliatory comment. The said profile was prepared using ‘digital forensics on his social media accounts done by India Today’s Open Source Intelligence Team’. The headline of the profile on Naveen reads, “A Sunny Leone fan, a political aspirant: Know more about man allegedly behind post that burnt Bengaluru.”
A recently married self proclaimed fan of Sunny Leone’s charity work and a wannabe neta, who is
P Naveen Kumar, who’s posts sparked the Bengaluru riots. Our OSINT desk ran some digital forensics on his deleted SM handles to draw up this character profile https://t.co/92qE1Xw4CO— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) August 15, 2020
Why does Sunny Leone make it to the story’s headline, you would ask? Apparently, the man had once shared a birthday wish for Sunny Leone, and that was sufficient material for the “Open Source Intelligence Team” of India Today to judge him as a fan of the former adult-film actor. The profile of Naveen prepared by India Today is nothing short of an endeavour to make the ‘blasphemous’ man look like the devil incarnate. Being a media house sympathetic to left-liberal ethos, while India Today would on any other day praise people who appear to look like ‘secular’ and ‘pluralists’, the Kanwal-led intelligence team thought it fit to make an exception of this man. As such, while Naveen appears to be secular, India Today doesn’t seem to like this trait in the man.
Therefore, the media house goes on to label Naveen as a man who has no “rigid political ideology” and whose posts “shout communal harmony”. In addition to doing their bid at distancing Naveen from the Congress, India Today, led by Rahul Kanwal’s new career-low, takes to portray the man as a non-achiever, who was not a “bright student” and who was “no stranger to controversy”.
A Deccan Herald report spoke to the same effect, citing ‘sources’ as saying that Naveen is a ‘serial offender’, who is habituated to passing derogatory comments against the community that reveres the Prophet, while also insulting the revered figure himself. The report makes it a point to make Naveen look like the aggressor who deserves to be punished for his trespasses against Islam as if India is ruled by sharia law and bears resemblance to Pakistan. The report said, “Sources revealed that Naveen, nephew of MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy and the second son of his sister, has a history of posting derogatory content triggering hatred. He posted abusive content on August 5 about the Padarayanapura incident”.
Ravish Kumar, who leaves no opportunity of pinning the blame on Hindus for any crime committed across the country by random people against Muslims thought it fit this time, though, to pass lectures on how the violent mob of Muslims in Bengaluru was, in-fact, a non-religious one. “A rioter is a rioter. He has nothing to do with Hinduism or Islam.” The boring and unwatched journalist further added, “Rioters look for a reason to be provoked. Those who know this game plan are well acquainted with the fact that a post can attract mobs who will unleash violence.”
While a section of Indian media works overtime to absolve the Muslim mob of all wrongdoings, it deems it fit, like the Congress, to throw a Dalit MLA and his nephew under the bus. One wonders what hell would have been broken loose had the mob been consisted of Hindus instead of Muslims.