BJP post on Ahmedabad blasts verdict removed from social media
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New Delhi: The controversial cartoon shared by the Gujarat wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party depicting the hanging of the culprits convicted in the Ahmedabad blasts case has been removed from social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, following backlash.
The cartoon depicted several Muslim men hanging with noises around their necks, with the caption: "Satyamev Jayate. No pardon to those who spread terror." The post received backlash for its purported meaning which many saw as an attempt to demonise Muslims as a whole.
Twitter confirmed it had proactively taken action against the post. The post has been actioned in keeping with Twitter rules, according to the public notice. The post subsequently became inaccessible on other social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook, it had 5,900 likes and over 28,000 likes on Instagram.
Leading Bollywood actor Richa Chadha asked the Muslim leaders in the BJP, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Shazia Ilmi, if they are comfortable with the post.
In a speech in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are ongoing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also invoked the Ahmedabad blasts case and said that there were some politicians in India who turned a blind eye to terrorist activities to cultivate a vote bank.
"When I was serving Gujarat as its chief minister, serial bomb blasts shook Ahmedabad. I will never forget those days...I lifted the blood-stained soil and swore that my government will dig these terrorists even from underground and punish them," PM Modi said.
He accused the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party of harbouring extremists. Yadav is campaigning against the incumbent Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who has also entered the poll fray for the first time.
The controversy came on the heels of a special court in Gujarat on Friday sentencing 38 people to death and 11 others to life imprisonment for serial bomb blasts that killed 56 people and injured 200 more in Ahmedabad in 2008. The 49 convicts, which included former Students Islamic Movement of India chief Safdar Nagori, were punished for carrying out 21 blasts that ripped through the city on July 26, 2008 within a span of 70 minutes.