Thread by @alishan_jafri

An important investigation on the criminal conspiracy of #ThookJihad (which means Spit literally) against working class Muslim men.

Request everyone to please read the whole thread and make sure that it reaches hate-mongers like @AmanChopra_.

1/n

On November 15, 2021, a seven-second video of a Muslim eatery worker from Loni, Ghaziabad, was widely circulated on social media. It was shared by members of the BJP and right-wing media handles like Kreately, who used it as ‘proof’ of something called #ThookJihad
2/n

The next day,News18's @AmanChopra_, held a debate based on the topic in which he made blatantly Islamophobic statements and talked about ‘riwaz-e-thook’ (a purported ‘tradition of spitting’), suggesting a sinister conspiracy by Muslim street food workers against Hindus.

3/n

Since @Memeghnad has already done a detailed takedown of the show, which is filled with anti-Muslim hatred and misinformation, the focus of this report is only on that seven-second video and the Hindu Raksha Dal (HRD) men who shot it.
4/n

https://twitter.com/Memeghnad/status/1461241213495906309?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1461241213495906309%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthewire.in%2Fcommunalism%2Fthook-jihad-is-the-latest-weapon-in-hindutvas-arsenal-of-islamophobia

Amit Prajapati, state chief of the HRD, told The Wire, “This is not a communal conflict. The food at the eatery is eaten by both Muslims and Hindus. We do not want people to fall prey to any disease during this epidemic (sic)...

5/n

...When a worker of the Hindu Raksha Dal passed by, he saw this person repeatedly spitting in rotis and made a video of him. Later, when our workers went to the hotel at about 5 pm, he misbehaved with them, so we called the police. The police took him into custody.”

6/n

The commentary in the video belies Prajapati's claim that these protests are spontaneous and non-communal.
7/n

In the background of the video is the eatery in question, which appears to have been vandalised. The Muslim man in the video is now in jail, based on a criminal complaint filed by Sood and other members of the HRD.
8/n

https://twitter.com/alishan_jafri/status/1462051244587905030?t=8MVfGyqhBHMEXExB_Xp_NQ&s=19

Strangely, this is not the first time that a member of the HRD has passed by street-side eatery in the area and spotted a Muslim man sp¡tting on rotis.
9/n

The other video, posted by members of the HRD in October shows a mob chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ outside a shop near Bhatia Chowk and pushing a man, perhaps a worker, after a Muslim man purportedly committed ‘thook jihad’.

10/n

Pinky Chaudhury, chief of the HRD, along with Sood had posted this video on their social media handles a month before Sood found himself in the same circumstances with another Muslim man in the town.
11/n

JSR to all my brothers. I have been saying this (sic) for a long time that no Hiπdu should eat at Mu$lim eateries because they want to d£file our faith…Boyc0tt these people with a Jih@di mind-set,” Chaudhury wrote on Facebook, sharing a News18 report (another coincidence).
12/n

In both the cases, they say that when men related to the HRD saw a Musl¡m chapati-maker commit what they call ‘thook jihad’ and intervened, they allegedly abused and attacked them, leading the Hindutva men to call the police.

13/n

The first information report (FIR) filed by Sisodiya (another HRD guy) alleged that two other eateries in the neighbourhood were part of the ‘thook jihad’ conspiracy.
14/n

On Nov 16, a large ‘Hanuman Chalisa protest’ was organised by members of the HRD near the Shiv Mandir in the area to stop meat eateries from “hurting Hindu sentiments” Sood called upon Hindus to attend the reading in large numbers to send a strong message to “vidharmis.”
15/n

@thewire_in had covered the group’s vigilante drive to shut down meat shops in Bulandshahr during Navratri, a campaign endorsed by Sisodiya, the complainant in the Tamizuddin case.

https://twitter.com/NeelMadhav_/status/1446439589820862468?s=20

Interestingly, one of the panellists on Chopra’s November 15 TV debate was Ashwini Upadhyay, who had been arrested (along with Pinky Chaudhary) in Aug, 2021 in connection with the Jantar Mantar hate rally  in which calls to economically cr¡pple and k¡ll Musl¡ms were made. 
17/n

.The men who happened to be present at the two different spots in less than a month in Ghaziabad’s Loni where ‘thook jihad’ was committed are all HRD workers. Their leader, Chaudhury, had been arrested along with Upadhyay after the Jantar Mantar hate rally in August.
18/n

Other accused in the hate rally case are also involved in a sustained campaign to b0ycott Musl¡ms for the last 2 years. For eg, In June 21, a Muslim man was assaulted in Uttam Nagar by an armed mob allegedly chanting JSR during protests by the same group against rehdi jihad.
19/n

Naushad became the first prey of this conspiracy of #ThookJihad in 2020. He was assaulted by members of another far-right vigilante group and an FIR was registered against him by Sachin Sirohi of the HJM. UP govt had invoked NSA against him.

20/n

Just like his colleagues of the HRD who keep stumbling upon instances of ‘thook jihad’, Sirohi and his men claim the ability to spot ‘love jihad’ as they walk the streets.
21/n

https://mobile.twitter.com/kaushikrj6/status/1439504341732261888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1439504357578272774%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthewire.in%2Fcommunalism%2Fthook-jihad-is-the-latest-weapon-in-hindutvas-arsenal-of-islamophobia

On one occasion, they found “a love jihadi harassing a Hindu woman” while they were walking down a street (sab coincidence hi hai).The man was assaulted and the woman was forced to hit him with her shoes while the vigilantes filmed the act.
22/n

Later, the woman filed a police complaint against the Hindutva men for the violence.
23/n

https://twitter.com/kaushikrj6/status/1439504357578272774?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1439504357578272774%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthewire.in%2Fcommunalism%2Fthook-jihad-is-the-latest-weapon-in-hindutvas-arsenal-of-islamophobia

On November 19, Jeet Vashisht, another member of the Hindu Jagran Manch, uploaded a video of himself harassing and manhandling a worker at a Muslim biryani stall. In the video, he accused the worker of urinating in the food, a charge the man repeatedly denied.
24/n

Later in the video, he accused another man of food contamination and threatened to call the police on the biryani stall. Last month, TheWire had covered Vashisht and his group forcibly shutting down meat shops and non-vegetarian eateries during a vigilante drive. (Coincidence)
25

Sorry, I could not fit everything in the thread. You may read this report for information.

m.thewire.in/article/commun…

@HindutvaWatchIn @Aakar__Patel @sushant_says @watchthestate @suchitrav @svaradarajan @khanumarfa @vinodkapri