Assam Muslims in India are accused of breaking levees and instigating jihad against floods.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW DELHI — Severe flooding recently hit the northeastern state of Assam. Unfortunately, the flood disaster was also associated with Muslims and blamed the Muslim community for the cause of the flood disaster.
Several Muslims were then run over by the police and taken to holding cells. They were accused of breaking the embankment and causing the jihad to flood.
One of them, Nazir Hussain Laskar, was arrested on July 3. Even though Laskar’s work for many years actually built the dam to protect it from flooding.
“I spent 16 years working for the government building dykes. Why did I destroy them? says Laskar quoted from BBC, Thursday (4/8/2022).
Laskar spent nearly 20 days behind bars before being released on bail. No evidence of his involvement has been found, but the social media storm around him has been raging ever since.
Two waves of flooding hit Assam in May and June, killing at least 192 people. While the state floods every rainy season, this year the rains came earlier and were heavier than usual.
However, for some social media users, something more sinister is at play here. They claim without evidence that the flood was man-made and that a group of Muslim men deliberately flooded the Hindu-majority town of Silchar by undermining the flood defences.
The arrest of Laskar, along with three other Muslim men, sparked a flurry of social media posts accusing them of waging jihad. This post has been shared thousands of times, including by top influencers with verified accounts. The claim was later picked up by several local media outlets and even aired on television.
