TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The police are investigating the case of a viral video on social media of a meeting of Hindu religious leaders in India. During the meeting, Hindu religious leaders called for mass murder or genocide and the use of weapons against Muslims.
Videos showing Hindu religious leaders in India calling for genocide against Muslims have sparked outrage. The police were asked to act.
The police said on Friday that they had launched a hate speech investigation at last week’s event in Haridwar, in the northern state of Uttarakhand. During the event participants called for mass killings and the use of weapons against Muslims.
A female speaker at the meeting told the crowd that people should not worry about going to jail for killing Muslims. “Even if only a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will win. If you stand with this attitude alone then you will be able to protect the sanatana dharma,” the woman says as the video goes.
The meeting was also attended by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party. The party has been accused of encouraging the persecution of Muslims and other religious minorities by hardline Hindu nationalists since coming to power in 2014. But the allegations have been denied.
Prominent Muslim lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted that the comments in the video were incitement to genocide. The Modi government has yet to comment on the event.
The woman in the video adds that Indians should pray to Nathuram Godse. He was the Hindu hardliner who assassinated India’s independence icon Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
Another delegate, Prabodhanand Giri, head of a hardline Hindu group often photographed with senior members of the BJP, called for a purge. He also asked those present at the event to be ready to die or be killed.
“Like Myanmar, police, politicians, army and every Hindu in India must take up arms and carry out this purge. There is no other option left,” he said.
A third speaker can be heard saying he hopes to kill Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh of the main opposition Congress party. Manmohan Singh is India’s first Sikh prime minister.
Another said he had asked hotels in his state not to allow Christmas celebrations. The statement was met with cheers from the audience.
The BJP has denied accusations that its agenda is turning an officially secular and pluralistic India into an ethnic Hindu state.
Uttarakhand state police chief Ashok Kumar said he would not tolerate such incidents. Police have registered a case under a section of Indian law that prohibits promoting hostility on the basis of religion. Violation is punishable by up to three years in prison.
The president of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, India’s largest Muslim socio-religious organization, accused the government of turning a blind eye to the hate speech. In a letter to various officials, Maulana Mahmood Madni demanded “stern action” against the violators. In addition Muslim, Christians are also targets of violence and abuse in India.
Read: Kaleidoscope 2021: Ganges River Becomes Mass Graveyard for India’s COVID-19 Victims
AL JAZEERA
– .
