A video has gone viral on social media which shows pro-Afzal Guru slogans being raised at an anti-CAA protest in Bihar’s Begusarai.
In the video, the protestors, at the event organised at Phool Chowk in Lakhminia area of Begusarai district in the state of Bihar, are seen raising various anti-national slogans. “Afzal tere khoon se inqualab aayega” was among the slogans raised by five to seven men on the stage while around 100 women and 30 men repeated the slogan sitting in the audience.
The part of the clip showing the purported slogan being raised was widely shared on Twitter.
A member of Bajrang Dal in Begusarai has given this video clip to Begusarai SP with a complaint that the “anti-national” slogan, “Afzal tere khoon se inqualab aayega”, was raised at an anti-CAA protest in Lakhminia area. Local report says Kanhaiya Kumar has attended this protest pic.twitter.com/ljw1RZdQKs
— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) February 4, 2020
In the event, other slogans that were raised were – “JNU tere khoon se inqualab aayega”, “Jamia tere khoon se inqualab aayega”, “AMU tere khoon se inqualab aayega” and “BHU tere khoon se inqualab aayega”, Begusarai edition of Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar reported on 4th February 2020.
On January 30, a live video from the protest was played from the Facebook account of one Naukhez Victor, which showed the anti-national slogan being raised. The report by Dainik Bhaskar, however, said that the video posted on Facebook was later taken down.
A member of the right-wing organisation Bajrang Dal named Shubham Bhardwaj, who has introduced himself as district convenor of Bajrang Dal, filed a complaint with Begusarai’s Superintendent of Police Awakash Kumar yesterday against the slogans raised at the protest.
According to the complaint, for the last 20-22 days, some people have seen sitting on a dharna against the recently newly introduced Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) at Phool Chowk in Lakhminia area of Begusarai district in the state of Bihar.
The complaint has named five men namely Altaf Rashid, Mohammad Salman Rain, Mohammad Sunny, Mohammad Adil and Mohammad Naukhez. The complainant also submitted a 9-minute 6-second video of the event to the SP.
The SP has, in turn, ordered a probe and entrusted the investigation of the entire case to Ballia DSP Anjani Kumar Singh.
According to the Swarjya report, former Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar also attended the protest, which is going on for the last 20-22 days, on one of the days.
Meanwhile, the organizers of the event have accused the opposition of making a doctored video viral on social media to discredit the event. Ambedkar Sangharsh Vichar Manch President Md Javed Akhtar said in a press conference that different tactics are being used by the opposition to discredit this movement.
Notably, the Delhi police had booked Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and others in a sedition case for raising similar slogans at an event organised in JNU in 2016, supporting terrorist Afzal Guru, a terrorist who had attacked the Indian Parliament.
Allegedly, slogans like ‘Afzal hum sharminda hai, tere kaatil zinda hai” (Afzal we are ashamed that your killers are still alive), and ‘Bandook se lenge Azadi’ (We will snatch freedom from India by the gun) was raised during the event in the JNU campus. Afzal Guru, who had attacked the Parliament was given the death sentence by Indian Courts.
