Gujarat BJP Tweets Muslim Caricature In Cartoon, Twitter Removes Post

The Gujarat unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has kicked up a row on social media after posting a controversial cartoon on it's social media accounts - Twitter and Facebook - in connection with the Ahmedabad blast verdict. The cartoon shows a caricature of a group of bearded men, wearing skullcaps and kurta pyjama--typical to Muslim men, in gallows. Twitter has now deleted the post citing violation of rules after several users expressed their anger and reported the tweet.

Screenshot of the deleted tweet.

Here is the archive of the deleted tweet.

The cartoon was shared on the official Twitter handle of the BJP's Gujarat unit on Saturday, a day after 38 of 49 convicts in 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts were sentenced to death. The other 11 were given life sentences by a special court. "Satyamev Jayate. No apology to the perpetrator of terror," read the translation of the caption with the cartoon. The same was also shared on the Facebook page of the party on Friday and hasn't been removed from there yet.

Infact, several users who reported the post on Facebook also got a response from the platform's content moderation team that the post does not violate its community standards.

Fifty six people were killed and over 200 injured in serial bomb blasts in Gujarat city in 2008. According to Public Prosecutor Amit Patel, this is the highest number of convicts being sentenced to death in a criminal case. Earlier, 26 convicts were awarded death penalty in connection with the assassination case of former prime minister Rajeev Gandhi.

The cartoon drew flak on social media for targeting the Muslim community with a stereotypical representation.

"Terrorism has no religion and no one knows it better than Congress party which has lost two former Prime Ministers to it. Today the BJP is rejoicing through controversial tweets and taking advantage of the court judgement. However, such judgements should not be looked through political prism and any opportunity to take political mileage out of it must be avoided (sic)," Manish Doshi, spokesperson of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee wrote on Twitter.