At least 86 concerned citizens from different walks of life on Thursday dashed off a letter to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, seeking action against the “inflammatory hate messaging on social media and public calls for violence against Muslims following the unfortunate and condemnable murder of Kishan Bharwad in Dhandhuka by certain criminal elements.”
The letter stated that when the local police and now the ATS acted with “alacrity and efficiency and the investigations are already on” while Bharwad’s assailants and the perpetrators of the crime were already arrested. There is nothing lacking from the State Government in bringing the alleged culprits to book.
The citizens have pointed out that the hate messages and public calls for violence against a community “are criminal and dangerous and have the potential of instigating further violence.” The letter has reminded the State Government of its duty “to track and apprehend such criminal elements to ensure that law and order prevails.”
Thirty-seven-year-old Kishan Boliya alias Kishan Bharwad, was shot dead allegedly by two motorbike-borne youngsters in Ahmedabad district’s Dhandhuka town on January 25. Police revealed that Bharwad was killed allegedly after an objectionable anti-Islam video posted by him on social media. Kishan was even arrested for this and bailed out, while a compromise was also struck subsequently. Seven people, including two Muslim clerics, have been arrested so far and even UAPA and GujCTOC invoked in the cases.
The concerned citizens wrote to the CM to note that after murder at Dhandhuka, “protesting mobs in Dhandhuka and Rajkot had turned unruly and had attacked the police and caused damage to public property too. This indicates how volatile the situation is, and therefore underlines the need for concerted action on the part of the police to ensure that the life, property and livelihoods of the Muslim community across Gujarat are not endangered in any way.”
They have called upon the Chief Minister, who also holds the home portfolio, to “direct the police to track, file FIRs against and apprehend those criminal elements propagating hate messages against the Muslim community in the social media and prosecute them”. They have asked that the police take preventive action “so that the situation does not go out of control and result in violence against any community” and identify sensitive areas, where protection needs to be deployed to safeguard “Muslim settlements where residents are apprehensive of violence by local criminal elements.”
