By Krishna Jha
A gun is pointed at two men with skullcaps. The man holding the gun is Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. It is a video posted by the BJP’s official twitter handle in Assam. Almost an open call for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The video, uploaded on February 7 with the caption “Point blank shot”, shows an image within image. Sarma, shooting at a photograph of the two men that ends with an image of himself dressed like a cowboy and wielding a gun, superimposed with phrases such as “No mercy to Bangladeshis”, “Why did you go to Pakistan?” and “Foreigner-free Assam.”
Video is a signal to coming of stormy days, replete with horror, glorifying targeted, ‘point-blank’ murders of minorities. It cannot be dismissed as random troll content. This amounts to a call to indulge in barbaric bloodshed, mass violence and genocide.
The video moment is not far from the real genocide. It is unveiling a stream of dark possibilities, with flickers of a scorching future. It is a reflection of the true face of the BJP regime, which has promoted this hatred for decades and, in the last 11 years, tried to normalise it. What is worse is that neither the prime minister nor any other leader of the BJP or the RSS has uttered a word to condemn this act.
Considering the gravity of the matter, there must be strict action against this act of spreading disharmony and poison in society. The judiciary must step in firmly and ensure accountability for this.
Himanta Biswa Sarma and the concerned BJP handlers must be put behind bars before a catastrophe unfolds in Assam. The Supreme Court should immediately take strict action against the chief minister and his coterie for vitiating communal harmony, creating enmity between communities, and publicly calling for violence. Our secular fabric must be protected at all costs.
Nor can the Election Commission remain a mute spectator. It must take cognizance of this open and targeted call for hate crimes against a community in a poll-bound state.
The outrage from across the nation did force the Assam BJP to delete the post on February 8, but that was all, no follow up action was taken against the erring BJP leaders involved in the act.
In September last year, the same X handle, which has over 2 lakh followers, had posted an AI-generated video with the text ‘Assam without BJP’. It showed images such as a man in a skull-cap cutting meat by the road side with the text ‘beef legalization’, of men in skullcaps and women in burkhas and hijabs in different locations such as tea gardens, the airport, in an amusement park and a stadium in Guwahati, in Ahom dynasty monument Rang Ghar, and walking across a border fence with the text ‘illegal immigrants’.
The following month, the Supreme Court issued a notice on a plea seeking directions to X and the official handle of Assam BJP to take down that video. At the time, the BJP’s Assam social media convener, Biswajit Khound, had told media, “We don’t use any agency; we write the content ourselves. We are not worried about what politicians who call themselves liberal have to say; our content is based on our fieldwork and the responses we get. Many ordinary people of Assam, from across small towns and villages are on Facebook, and accordingly, our content there is in line with their sensibilities. On Twitter, we are more aggressive.”
It is hardly a secret that at every opportunity, BJP plays the communal card to polarise society, pits communities against each other and normalises bloodlust in public life.
Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP in Assam are known for using the SIR exercise and the bogey of ‘infiltrators’ to make highly communal, provocative statements and issue calls for targeted violence against Muslims.
Three years back, in April 2023, the Supreme Court had instructed all governments to register, suo motu, FIRs against the preachers of hate, without waiting for someone to file a complaint. This measure, the court thought, was necessary to preempt mob violence and foster communal harmony.
In Assam, however, the Chief Minister is himself engaged in spreading of communal hatred, demonizing Muslims and signalling for genocide.
On January 25 this year, Sarma said the Special Revision of Assam’s electoral rolls was bereft of controversies. He said: “Which Hindu has got notice? Which Assamese Muslim has got notice? Notices have been served to minority and such people, else they will walk over our heads. We will do some utpaat [mischief], but within the ambit of law.”
On January 27, he said when the Special Intensive Revision happens in Assam, “four to five lakh Miya voters will have to be deleted”. He added, without a hint of embarrassment, “Vote chori means we are trying to steal some Miya votes. They should ideally not be allowed to vote in Assam, but in Bangladesh.”
The following day, on January 28, he exhorted, “Whoever can give trouble [to Miyas] in any way should give… In a rickshaw, if the fare is Rs.5, give them Rs.4. Only if they face troubles will they leave Assam.”
On August 14, 2025, the Chief Minister had claimed that Muslim immigrants “rent a house, then they cut the cow, then a Masjid comes up. This forces the Satra [Vaishnavite monastic institutions] out of the area. This is a pattern in Assam.” A year earlier, he accused Muslims of indulging in “flood jihad”.
In 2023, he blamed “Miya vendors” for raising vegetable prices in cities. Sarma has even justified distributing gun licences to Hindus living in Muslim-majority districts, ostensibly because of the threats of violence they face.
Already, the Assam Chief Minister’s avowed claim of combating “land jihad” has left thousands of Muslim families displaced in different parts of the state. (IPA Service)
