By Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — A video shared widely on social media has prompted alarm in Siddharthnagar district in eastern Uttar Pradesh after a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was shown making an explicit threat against the Muslim community.
The recording, which appears to have been shot at a public fruit eating programme at Nagar Panchayat Bharatbhari on Tuesday, shows Lavkush Ojha — identified as the Bhanwapur block chief under Dumariaganj tehsil — issuing a violent warning. In the clip Ojha is heard saying: “The honourable MLA has issued a warning, butchers, listen carefully. If you don’t stop cow slaughter in Dumariyaganj, then the Muslims of Dumariyaganj will be slaughtered like carrots and radishes. This work will be done by Bharatiya Janata Party workers.” The video later carries the threat further: “Even after such a warning, if anyone still thinks of cow slaughter, or even if it comes to their mind, they will be slaughtered like carrots and radishes.”
Residents at the event told reporters that several BJP figures present appeared uneasy on hearing the remarks. The clip was recorded by someone at the gathering and then circulated online, drawing rapid attention and condemnation from local community leaders and human rights activists.
Uttar Pradesh has long enforced strict legal protections around cattle. The Uttar Pradesh Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955, prohibits slaughter of cows and the sale or transport of beef in many circumstances; the law is regularly cited in disputes and has been part of state efforts to curb cattle smuggling and illegal slaughter. Those laws and the policing that accompanies them have, at times, fuelled communal tensions when individuals or groups are accused of violating rules.
Rights groups and journalists have documented a series of incidents across the state in which accusations of cattle related offences have preceded mob violence and attacks on Muslim citizens and traders. Authorities in Uttar Pradesh have also been active in registering large number of cases and making arrests related to alleged cow slaughter and cattle smuggling in recent months. That intensified enforcement has not always prevented communal flare ups, local activists say. Muslim residents in the area said they are unnerved by the tone of the speech and fear that such words, when voiced by a public representative, normalise threats against a vulnerable community.
A local shopkeeper, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, told Clarion India: “We are worried. People who sell meat or keep cattle worry for their lives. When a leader says this from a stage, it makes us afraid to go about our work.”
This story was originally published in clarionindia.net. Read the full story here.