Videos of clashes between Hindu and Muslim groups in Nepal, amidst the slogan of ‘Katua Bhagao, Desh Bachao’, being raised by Hindu groups, are doing the rounds on social media. While, yet again, the Hindus have been labelled as ‘Hindutva terrorists’, tensions in Nepal’s Madhes region are flaring high. The unrest has led to the imposition of curfews in the region, and additional security forces have been deployed in sensitive areas.
While ‘Hindutva terrorism’ has once again gained the spotlight on the centre-stage, not everyone knows how and why the flames of communal tension were fanned in Nepal. It was on Sunday, July 26 that a Kanwar procession called the ‘Bol Bam Yatra’, participated in by saffron-clad men was passing through a Muslim-dominated area in Sundari district; and what followed was detestable but not shocking. Muslims started pelting stones on the procession from inside the mosque situated there.
As a result of the unprovoked stone-pelting by the Muslims, the Hindus retaliated, and soon, communal riots erupted. To control the situation, police personnel and other security forces were called in. What followed was ravaging. The security forces opened fire, and many Hindu protestors were shot by them. Not only were Hindus injured in this firing, one Om Prakash Mehta was killed right on the spot, and after a few days, one Jay Prakash Mehta, and just a 15-year-old Ganesh Yadav lost their lives during treatment as well.
This is why the Hindus of Nepal, filled with anger, have been protesting on the streets, against the hatred shown by the Islamists, and the unfair barbarity unleashed by the police and security forces. This is not the first time that such an incident has taken place in Nepal. In the month of January too, a Hindu procession being carried out in the Rautahat area was pelted with stones by Muslims, from a mosque.
Be it Nepal or India, pelting stones at Hindus and their religious processions and Muslims seem to go hand in hand. And when retaliation by the victims follows, the bogey of ‘Hindu terrorism’ is raised, and propaganda that paints the perpetrators as the wronged, is spread all across social and news media. In this shallow attempt of the pseudo-secularists to whitewash what the actual criminals did, fake news becomes the biggest and strongest weapon.
In this case too, claims were made on social media that Hindus vandalized a mosque, as a result of which these tensions erupted. But there is no official report that suggests the demolition of any mosque during these recent protests.
No matter the country or society, the modus operandi of Islamists remains the same, they take some deplorable, offensive, non-tolerant, unprovoked action against other religious communities, and when the latter answers them using their own language, they leave no stone unturned to pull their victim card out: a classic example of a pot calling the kettle black!
