NEW DELHI — Assam Chief Minister is facing heat on social media for allegedly communalising an incident of assault on health workers after he put out a tweet naming 24 accused who were Muslim.
Himanta Biswa Sarma while quoting a viral video showing men beating a doctor and a paramedic said “Such barbaric attacks on our frontline workers won’t be tolerated by our administration. Assam Police and DGP GP Singh ensure that the culprits (are) brought to justice.”
The attack came after a patient died which enraged the relatives and they beat up Dr Seuj Kumar Senapati at the Udali CCC in Hojai district of central Assam on Tuesday, June 1.
The Assam Police also named the accused and claimed to have arrested 24 people in connection with the case.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra quoted Sarma’s tweet and asked people to “name and shame them”.
Activists say that a CM naming the accused in the attack who are Muslims shows the communal bias of the government. “A CM of state is posting names of perpetrators who attacked a doctor in Assam. These names will be viral on WA to fuel anti-Muslim hate,” Md Asif Khan, a social media activist known for exposing hate crimes against Muslim, said in a tweet.
Many people pointed out how similar incidents of attacks on healthcare workers where the perpetrators are non-Muslims are brushed under the carpet and the identity of the attackers does not come to the fore.
“Same incident happened in Delhi, do you know name of attackers?” Khan asked.
He also brought spotlight to a similar incident in Assam’s Cachar on Tuesday when a team of healthcare workers were allegedly thrashed by a group of men. The police arrested seven accused identified as Babul Orang, Madhu Teli, Dipan Teli, and Ajay Middha.
CT Ravi, the BJP leader and MP from Karnataka, also joined the communal chorus and posted the screenshots of Sarma’s tweet thread with a caption: Secularists who brutally assaulted a Doctor in Assam have been arrested by the Police.
Ironically, Ravi forgot to talk about the attack on a doctor in his home district of Chikkamagaluru, a day before the Assam incident.
Mohammed Zubair, the editor of fact checking portal Alt News, quoted Ravi’s tweet with pictures showing Dr Deepak’s head badly wounded.
According to Zubair, police arrested three accused— Venugopal, Nitin and Venkatesha. “Swords were recovered from the accused,” he informed, adding a jibe: “Are the accused “Secularists” too? Why communalise?”
Some accounts were also putting out tweets asking why the Muslim accounts were not talking about the Assam incident while they raise their voice when victims are Muslim. They responded arguing that no Muslim condoned the violent attack on doctors at the forefront of fight against coronavirus.
This story was first appeared on clarionindia.net