Foreign media downplays atrocities committed on Hindus during Murshidabad violence, rationalises Muslim mob attacks
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12 April, 2025
Case Summary
The mayhem unleashed by Muslim mobs in West Bengal's Murshidabad district left 1000s of Hindus stranded. Several were forced to flee their homes in Murshidabad to the nearby Malda district via boats. Amid this onslaught on the Hindu community, foreign media publications like Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse (AFP) downplayed the atrocities committed on Hindus by violent Muslim mobs. Al Jazeera published a report titled ‘India deploys troops after deadly protests over Muslim endowment bill’. Instead of focusing on the actual Hindu victims, Al Jazeera portrayed the Muslim perpetrators as ‘victims’. The large-scale riots were trivialised as ‘protests against a recently passed controversial bill.’ The mayhem unleashed by Muslim mobs was rationalised by suggesting that the Waqf Amendment Act diluted the rights of Muslims to manage religious endowments (Waqf). Terms such as ‘escalation of protests’ were employed to characterise the violence. Al Jazeera, in its report, focused on the inclusion of non-Muslims in Waqf and laid the justification for Muslims to run riots in Murshidabad against the supposed ‘religious discrimination’. “Muslims fear that changes to the 1995 law could leave waqf properties, including historic mosques, shops, shrines, graveyards and thousands of acres of land, vulnerable to confiscation, dispute and demolition,” it further contextualised the violence against the Hindu community. Similarly, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) also published a wire report that sought to downplay the scale of the targeted violence against Hindus in Murshidabad, where enraged Muslim mobs resorted to riots in opposition to the new Waqf legislation. These well-orchestrated attacks were softened as merely “deadly protests,” with the narrative built around the claim that the unrest stemmed from a law altering the management of “Muslim-owned properties.” “The Waqf amendment bill that set off the protests was passed earlier this month after heated debate,” AFP stated, framing the violence as a reaction to legislative changes. Quoting Opposition leaders, the news agency portrayed the Waqf Amendment Act as draconian, thereby legitimising the so-called protests and creating a rationale for the violence that erupted in its aftermath. AFP further reported, “Police fired tear gas at the thousands of demonstrators who gathered on Friday in the state’s Murshidabad district. Three people, including a child, were killed, police told AFP on Saturday,” presenting the situation as if security forces used lethal force on peaceful protestors—while ignoring the riotous nature of the mobs. The report also appeared to pin blame on the Modi government, stating, “Modi’s decade as premier has seen him cultivate an image as an aggressive champion of the country’s majority Hindu faith. His government revoked the constitutional autonomy of India’s Muslim-majority Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and backed the construction of a temple on the grounds where a mosque stood for centuries before it was torn down by Hindu extremists in 1992.” Due to this misleading portrayal of the communal violence that targeted Hindus in Murshidabad, AFP’s wire story was re-circulated across Pakistani outlets such as Dawn, Geo News, and The News International, further amplifying the distorted narrative. On 11th April, 2025, Murshidabad district in West Bengal, which has a significant Muslim population, witnessed widespread violence, vandalism, arson, and targeted assaults against the Hindu community, all under the pretext of protests against the newly enacted Waqf Amendment Act. Following the conclusion of Jumma Namaz, mobs went on a rampage in the Suti and Samserganj areas, disrupting train services, damaging public infrastructure, and bringing normal life to a standstill. The office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) was vandalised with stones and sticks, creating an atmosphere of chaos and fear. However, what stands out is the deliberate and systematic targeting of the Hindu community under the guise of these protests. Local reports also suggested that Hindu temples were attacked and idols desecrated. Hundreds of Hindus were compelled to flee their homes in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district in the wake of an Islamic onslaught carried out under the pretext of protests against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2025, an outbreak of violence that also claimed three lives.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category- Hate Speech against Hindus. The sub-category selected is- Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution. Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution/ethnic cleansing refers to the act of denying or minimizing the fact of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. This often involves denying the scale, mechanisms, religious intent, or even the occurrence of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. Hate speech of this kind involves the dissemination of falsehoods that deny or distort established historical facts or mock the suffering of Hindus by saying that they deserved the persecution, motivated by Hinduphobia. Denying such atrocities is not only about the denial of facts or rewriting/revising history, but it also delegitimises the religiously motivated persecution of Hindus, the religious hate/motivation/animosity that led to the persecution, and dehumanises Hindus as a religious group. Such denial of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus not only denies the suffering but also paves the way for future/present atrocities and hate speech, inciting prejudice and violence against Hindus. It also provides a justification for violence by delinking religious animosity from religiously motivated crimes committed against Hindus. Since such denial and/or mocking of genocide/ethnic cleansing/atrocities motivated by religious animosity leads to present and future ramifications of creating more hate speech, violence, dehumanisation and delegitimisation, it would be considered hate speech under this category. The second sub-category selected here is- Anti Hindu subversion and prejudice, and the tertiary category chosen within this is- Anti Hindu fake news or downplaying. This case qualifies as a hate crime due to the denial and minimisation of the violence faced by the Hindu community in Murshidabad. By framing the large-scale attacks as "protests" against the Waqf Amendment Bill and focusing on the grievances of the Muslim community, Al Jazeera downplays the atrocities committed against Hindus. This distortion of facts delegitimises the real suffering and persecution of Hindus, while portraying the perpetrators of violence as victims. Such narratives not only downplay the severity of religiously motivated attacks but also ignore the religious animosity that drove the violence, allowing for further dehumanisation of Hindus as a religious group. Furthermore, the framing of the violence as an expression of fear over the bill, without acknowledging the targeting of Hindus, fosters an environment where the persecution of Hindus is either denied or justified. This kind of reporting paves the way for future violence and hate crimes by perpetuating false narratives that delegitimise the persecution of the victims. By failing to address the religiously motivated nature of the violence and the specific targeting of Hindus, Al Jazeera and AFP contribute to the broader pattern of Hinduphobia and incite further animosity towards the Hindu community.
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