A bus carrying devotees of Lord Ayyappa was allegedly attacked by extremists in Andhra Pradesh’s Rayachoti town. The former played devotional songs and the mob claimed that the music was too loud. They demanded that the bhajans be shut down and also assaulted the Hindus including the driver. Now, the authorities have once again chosen to protect ‘secularism’ under the guise of combating misleading information rather than defending the victims.
While acknowledging that the anti-Hindu incident did occur, the Annamayya district police prioritized intimidating netizens who raised the issue on social media. “Strict action for spreading false information. What happened in Rayachoti is a sensitive matter, but false stories are being spread on social media. Such people would not be spared,” they declared on X (formerly Twitter).
*పత్రికా ప్రకటన
— ANNAMAYYA DISTRICT POLICE (@AnnamayyaPolice) December 8, 2024
*అన్నమయ్య జిల్లా*
*తప్పుడు సమాచారాన్ని వ్యాప్తి చేస్తే కఠిన చర్యలు..*
*➡️రాయచోటి లో జరిగింది సున్నితమైన అంశం, కానీ తప్పుగా సోషల్ మీడియాలో తప్పుడు కథనాలు ప్రచారం చేస్తున్నారు.. అలాంటి వారిని వదలిపెట్టం..*
*💠జిల్లా ఎస్పీ శ్రీ.వి.విద్యాసాగర్ నాయుడు ఐపీఎస్ గారు..* pic.twitter.com/k494EkKIJa
Of course, it is crucial to impose control over notorious elements who engage in these kinds of activities and prevent the spread of false information to keep the situation from deteriorating. However, such social media vigilance speaks volumes about stopping people from discussing the news, which could damage the reputation of the authorities, in addition to just curbing misinformation.
Notably, the authorities acknowledged that the car carrying the Ayyappa devotees was stranded in front of a mosque, following which agitated Muslims emerged and allegedly began yelling slogans. They also confirmed that a “peace committee” was formed “to ease tensions” with members of both communities (Hindus and Muslims). How, in the absence of communal violence, could there be any tensions between people of the two faiths? Regrettably, some questions are destined to remain unanswered. Furthermore, the visuals also conveyed the truth of the instance. However, the police are hesitant to call it a communal incident, as they always do.
These disclosures make it abundantly evident that a confrontation between the Muslim and Hindu communities did transpire which was followed by a “peace committee” which would not be necessary without the conflict itself. Meanwhile, the police are making every effort to deny this as amplified by another instance in which an individual referred to the occurrence as “really despicable” and added that it is unacceptable that the local Muslims complained about the playing of Ayyappa songs on the bus transporting the devotees.
The user then chose to state some uncomfortable truths and expressed, “Muslims do namaz on loudspeakers for Allah five times a day. It happens even at 4:30 in the morning but no Hindu ever labelled it as disturbance. Followers of no religion should behave in this manner which can disturb the religious harmony. It is not good for this country.” However, the police were quick to respond to the statement and termed the condemning of the attack on Hindus as “material that may aggravate communal tensions between different religious groups.”
Instead of keeping an eye on the conditions on the ground that resulted in the assault, the police declared to monitor the person’s post and profile as well as even threatened harsh action. “Posting or sharing such content without due verification is a punishable offence,” they added. Now, it’s crucial to remember that the remark wasn’t disseminating any false information, rather, only submitted a reasonable question, which the police took as a challenge to law and order.
Unfortunately, the authorities are now cracking down on social media users discussing the incident as though they were responsible for the attack in a desperate attempt to refute that a Muslim mob did attack Hindus.
Why do police seldom recognize a communal angle in such instances?
The authorities frequently allege that there was “no communal angle” to the crime or reject that it was in any way motivated by a religious bias in situations like these, where the motivation is clear but not implied explicitly. Hence, many might wonder why the police repeatedly shy away from calling a spade a spade. This could be due to a variety of reasons. Low-level communal occurrences are frequently minimized by the police because they cast doubt on their authority. They also dismiss it because they don’t want one incident to trigger another in the area or lead to further tensions, which is often a possibility.
The Left media, leftist intellectuals and their entire ecosystem work like an extended arm of Islamists are also prone to emphasize the banal “no communal angle” routine, particularly in cases when the victim of the crime is a Hindu. Nevertheless, a police statement or a media story alone, for example, is insufficient to ascertain whether the crime includes a communal angle and therefore ground realities must be evaluated to ascertain if the crime is communal or not.
For instance, the unholy Islamist-leftist union attempted to propagate that there was no communal component to the 2021 murder of Rinku Sharma, a Bajrang Dal activist who was brutally stabbed in his home in front of his family in Delhi’s Mangolpuri neighbourhood. The fact that the crime was communal was rejected even by the police. Opindia, however, spoke with several individuals who were there with the victim’s family and they unveiled that there is an obvious feeling of communal hostility in the region. According to Rinku Sharma’s family, the Muslims in the neighbourhood have harboured animosity toward him ever since he welcomed the historic Ram Mandir decision.
The fact that it is only one among thousands of anti-Hindu hate crimes that occur routinely in India and then downplayed in the name of ‘secularism’ must be remembered. This tracker will document cases like Rinku Sharma’s where the victim’s family or relatives’ testimonies clearly show that there was a clear religious bias that gave rise to the crime, even if the police have denied a communal angle or the leftist media has gone to great lengths to promote the “no communal angle” trope. Likewise, the attack on Ayyappa devotees has been recorded as a hate crime against Hindus because the police statement and the video both attest to its religious motivation.
