The ruling party maintained on Monday that a caricature tweeted by the Gujarat BJP unit on a court judgement condemning 38 people to death in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial explosions was based on genuine images and did not target any particular faith or community, a day after Twitter removed the caricature.
However, the opposition Congress and some social activists praised Twitter’s decision to remove the cartoon, accusing the BJP of exploiting the court’s judgement for political gain.
A gang of bearded guys wearing skull hats hung from a rope in the cartoon. It had a tricolour and a drawing in the background representing a bomb detonation, with “Satyamev Jayate” printed in the upper right corner.
It was tweeted on the Gujarat BJP’s official Twitter account on Saturday, a day after a special court here sentenced 38 prisoners to death and 11 others to life in the case of the 2008 serial bomb explosions, which killed 56 people and injured over 200 more. The caricature is not visible on the state BJP’s Instagram or Facebook accounts.
“The sketch was inspired by real images of the defendants that were released in newspapers the day following the decision.” “The Gujarat BJP or its social media team had no intention of using the sketch to target any particular faith or community,” claimed Dr Rutvij Patel, a spokesperson for the state party unit. When (terrorist) Osama Bin Laden was killed, he said.
When Osama Bin Laden was slain by American soldiers, he stated, his sketch was also published in the United States. “Our sketch was nothing more than an artistic expression posted on social media,” Patel explained.
Yagnesh Dave, the Gujarat BJP’s communications coordinator, said on Sunday that Twitter had taken down the caricature after “someone complained about it.”
ALL INDIA LEGAL FORUM 