About a week back, Rajasthan witnessed a brutal murder where a Muslim labourer was burnt alive, over allegations of him indulging in love jihad with the accused’s sister.
Soon various conspiracy theories started floating around, after which the police stated that he wasn’t part of any organisation to negate allegations of it being a collective effort. The issue though has refused to die down, even though the accused was arrested and the police has asserted that they would demand capital punishment for him.
As per latest reports, section 144 has been imposed in Udaipur and Rajsamand from Wednesday night after a rally was taken out by Hindu groups purportedly in order to protest against inflammatory sloganeering carried out by Muslims in Udaipur’s Chetak Circle.
The Hindu groups as a result of this sloganeering seem to have rallied together to demand action against the Muslim group for their communal chants. About 15 Hindu groups including the Bajrang Dal have called for a protest on Friday.
The police as a result decided to step in and apart from imposing section 144, also suspended internet services in the region.
Other reports though for some reason decided to claim that this rally was being organised in support of the murder accused, without venturing into the alleged sloganeering by Muslim groups.
Apart from media reports, certain undated videos are circulating on social media which supposedly capture the inflammatory statements made by the Muslims:
https://twitter.com/AmiteshK01/status/940632543832899585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
In this video which indeed is from Udaipur, one can clearly hear chants like, Hindustan mein rehna hoga to Allah u Akbar kehna hoga.
As per a tweet put out by Rakesh Goswami, who is the bureau chief of Hindustan Times Rajasthan, Muslim groups had carried out a rally in Udaipur on Friday to demand death penalty against the accused:
https://twitter.com/rakeshgoswamiHT/status/939101222425919489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Though thanks to a lack of media coverage over this aspect, it isn’t possible to confirm whether the inflammatory sloganeering was part of this protest march or if these two are disjoint incidents. However, the Hindu groups decided to take out a rally after such clips went viral on social media, due to which internet services too have been suspended in the region.