“Madhu stole 1 kg rice. A mob of Ubaid , Hussain and Abdul Kareem lynched the poor tribal man to death,” former cricketer Virender Sehwag tweeted on Saturday about the mob that had lynched a mentally challenged tribal man in Kerala on Thursday. The incident left India shocked.
Brutally thrashed over suspicions that he had stolen of rice from local shops, 30-year-old Madhu succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital. Even though the killing was widely condemned by all sections in Kerala, the usual suspects such as Hindutva Twitter handle Shankhnaad grabbed the opportunity to give the issue a communal colour. What do we know about the mob? Did it only consist of the three people named by Sehwag?
According to initial reports, police had taken 10 people into custody including Ubaid, the man who took that selfie. Seven people were named in newspaper reports: Hussain Muhammed, Manu Damodaran, Abdul Rahman, Abdul Latheef, Abdul Kareem, A P Ummer and Mathachan Joseph.
Sneha Koshy, Kerala Bureau chief of NDTV, shared a longer list of arrests.
Sehwag’s attempt to selectively highlight only Muslim names out of a mixed mob was called out by many on Twitter. Senior journalist Shekhar Gupta highlighted that the 16 arrested until Saturday evening belong to various faiths.
After the social media outrage, Sehwag has now apologised for the incomplete and misleading information in his tweet. But the damage is already done, with Sehwag’s attempt to selectively highlight only Muslim names out of a mixed mob was called out by many on Twitter.Sehwag’s attempt to selectively highlight only Muslim names out of a mixed mob was called out by many on Twitter.
While Sehwag’s misleading tweet did the most harm, the fact that incident took place in Kerala and suspects included Muslims has also set the right-wing nationalist handles in an overdrive. “Where is the outrage?” asked some, even though there was outrage all around. “There is no outrage because it is a CPM ruled state and the victim is not a Muslim,” concluded others, not missing this opportunity stoke communal passions.
The pattern is familiar. Most recently, after an attack on a school bus in Gurgaon, five random Muslim names were circulated as accused on social media.
This article first appeared on Alt News.
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