Kasaragod: The Kasaragod Cyber Crime Police charged BJP National Secretary Anil Antony with promoting hate for sharing a video of Muslim students protesting for a bus stop near their college with a fake narrative that they were forcing a Hindu woman to wear a burqa. He stretched the narrative to say that Kerala led by these politicians (from CPM, Congress, and IUML) is becoming a hotbed of fundamentalism and radicalisation. "These are ominous signs indeed," he said in the X post he later deleted.
Anil Antony made the comments by sharing a fake post of an American anti-Muslim troll Amy Mek, whose real name is Amy Jane Mekelburg.
On October 28, a day after Amy Mek posted the hate message, Kasaragod Cyber Crime Police Inspector Narayanan A took a suo moto case against her and charged her with the stringent Section 153 A of the Indian Penal Code for "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion" and "doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony".
On October 30, Adv M T Sidharthan, district secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI), a frontal organisation of CPM, filed a complaint against BJP leader Anil K Antony and right-wing influencer Anandi Nair, whose X handle is @Anandi_sanatani, for sharing the protest video with the fake narrative.
Based on Sidharthan's complaint, Kasaragod Cyber Crime Police added Anil Antony and Anandi Nair's name to Amy Mek's case on Tuesday, October 31, said an officer.
Huffington Post, which profiled Mekelburg alias Amy Mek five years ago, said she routinely posted anti-Muslim messages and memes on X, previously known as Twitter.
On October 28, she posted a clipped video of Muslim students arguing with a woman, with the message 'Sharia Patrols in India!'
"Islamic women harassed a Hindu woman for daring to ride a bus in Kerala without a sharia covering. The enraged Muslims demanded she wear a burqa.
Muslims do not want Hindus to ride on public transportation without adhering to their Sharia demands - Allahu Akbar!" she wrote in the post viewed by 1.2 million users on X. Several rightwing influencers also either shared the post or uploaded the video again with the same narrative.
RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya also posted the video on X saying Muslim women force Hindu women to wear burqa before boarding buses. It was liked by 8,586 persons and viewed by nearly a million users.
This reporter debunked Amy Mek's post as soon as it came to notice by uploading additional videos from the day on X. The women in burqa were students of Khansa Women's College for Advanced Studies in Kasaragod's Kumbla and they were protesting against private buses for not stopping in front of their college.
Fact-checking website Alt News spoke to the police and drivers of the buses to counter the fake narrative. India Today's fact-checker Dheeshama Puzhakkal tracked down the woman in saree, Asha Bhaskar, who worked as an office assistant in an educational institute in Kumbla.
Asha told the reporter that the students did not make any communal statements. She said the students were angry because the buses did not stop at the bus stop. "While entering the bus, one of the students accidentally stepped on my foot, which angered me. The altercation between the students and me began at this point. I also scolded them for blocking the bus. I travel this route every day, and this fight for a bus stop near Khansa has been going on for a while now," Asha told India Today. Despite the rebuttals, Amy Mek, Nair, or Panchjanya did not delete the post.
