Gone are the days when the media would be able to whitewash the crimes committed by criminals from the minority community. Now, governments are making it a point to release the names of such criminals for public consumption, leaving little to no legroom for mainstream media outlets to fidget with the details of the perpetrators involved in sensitive cases. The popular narrative, whenever a Muslim is victimised or attacked, is that Hindus are taking an extremist turn. The liberal media and opposition parties hype and propagate this narrative and in normal times, such efforts would have been successful. However, now the trend has started to change as evident from two criminal cases in UP and Assam and the speedy action by the Yogi and Himanta governments in the respective states.
Of late, it is being seen that the names of criminals are being released in sensitive cases – most of whom turn out to be from the minority community, thus puncturing the well-crafted narrative of liberals and Islamists that Hindus are increasingly attacking the minority community. Earlier, in cases like those of Nirbhaya’s gangrape, the liberal media hastily released the name of the Hindu culprit and there was a hesitancy in exposing the names of the Muslim preparators. But now, the narrative has been changed manifold and without hesitancy, the state governments are naming and shaming the actual culprits.
Earlier, liberal mainstream media even had the temerity of protecting Muslim criminals by publishing Hindu pseudonyms while reporting on crimes. This practice has been scuttled due to the fact that state governments are now releasing the actual names of criminals, and not secularising criminalities. Take the instance of the incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Loni, where a Muslim wizard’s bear was chopped off and he was beaten up.
The wizard who got beaten up had claimed that he was mobbed by a group of Hindus who forced him to chant ‘Jai Shree Ram’. However, this turned out to be a complete lie, as the Uttar Pradesh police released the names of all Muslim culprits involved in assaulting the wizard. The police also said that the perpetrators included the likes of Arif, Adil, Kallu, Polli and Mushahid. With this, the bogus liberal narrative of Hindus targeting Muslims fell apart in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh.
In another instance, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday took to Twitter to announce that the perpetrators of a heinous rape on two minor tribal girls in Kokrajhar, Assam have been arrested by the police. The girls, aged 14 and 16, belonged to the Rabha community and were found hanging from a tree on Saturday. Seven people were arrested for the rape of the minor girls, and Himanta Biswa Sarma himself revealed the names of the three prime accused – Muzammil Sheikh, Nazibul Sheikh and Farouk Rahman. The others included Hanif Sheikh, Jahanur Islam, Md. Atab Ali and Sankarde Barman.
Late last month, it came to light that the communally volatile town of Bhainsa in Telangana was once again being prepared to turn into a mass graveyard for Hindus. In May, it was found that a mosque in Bhainsa had its walls scribbled with ‘Jai Shree Ram’. Naturally, Hindus were brought under the lens of trying to instigate communal violence in Bhainsa by ‘desecrating’ a mosque. In a shocking revelation, however, Bhainsa Police revealed that at least three Muslims were caught trying to instigate communal violence by themselves writing ‘Jai Shree Ram’ on the walls of the mosque in question.
Telangana police revealed the names of the perpetrators, and they were as follows: Mohammed Abdul Kaif, Mohammed Abdul Majid and a 14-year-old Muslim minor. Hindus are being made targets of a conspiracy. While Muslim miscreants masquerade as Hindus trying to pin the blame on the majority community, their liberal colleagues paint the picture of India turning into a radical and intolerant state where people are being targeted on the basis of their religion – particularly if they happen to be adherents of Islam.
However, if the recent precedent being set by states like UP and Assam is anything to go by, the crimes of Muslim criminals will no longer be whitewashed and pinned on Hindus.