Antisocial Media

The disturbing pattern to outbreaks of communal violence in recent times.

 

The recent violence sparked over a religiously-inappropriate picture demeaning Prophet Muhammad at Rangpur Sadar upazila’s Thakurbari village just happens to be the latest in the string of communal violences since the Ramu riots in 2012, that affected the Buddhist community, and Nasirnagar, Brahmanbaria last year, where Hindus again were the victim.

The template seems to be laid out in a rather uniform way – a member of the religious minority is tagged in a picture on Facebook which demeans Islam and its components, an instigator who happens to be in the friend list of that individual shows the sacrilegious picture all across the village/town and all hell breaks loose.

Hundreds are later identified by law enforcement officials, arrested and await trials which go on for a substantial period of time. Both the tagged person and the instigator are arrested, but it turns out that the minority individual was merely tagged in that picture and was not the primary uploader, which was invariably uploaded months back, hence, leaving the authorities with the conclusion that there was no way he could have instigated such riots.

The modus operandi has been evident over the past decade, with religious zealots carrying out synchronised attacks on the basis of a mere post on social media.

What really happened?