Bengaluru: Riots are condemnable. Violence is condemnable. Vandalism is also condemnable. The reason might be provocative, but it doesn’t give the licence to anyone to unleash hostility at others.
The recent Sweden riots in which a mob ran amok is the latest incident of mobocracy.
But worse than the riots is the attitude of a few celebrities who justify it.
Bollywood actor Jaaved Jaaferi has justified the riots!
A user put out a tweet saying, “Naseeruddin Shah, Aamir Khan and Javed Jaffrey who thinks India is intolerant must be thinking of taking Sweden’s citizenship after seeing these pics.”
To this, he replied, “Actually we were thinking of taking US citizenship after watching these pics. All violence (not protests) is condemnable. Btw why didn’t you mention the cause of the violence ??? I wonder..just in case you missed it:”
Irrespective of the cause, it is common knowledge that none has the imprimatur to take law into their own hands.
A note on Sweden riots
Sweden was on fire after a copy of the holy Quran was burnt in Malmo. More than 300 people gathered to protest after which they set tyres on fire.
Sensing the gravity of the issue, an imam even put out a post on Facebook, saying such violence doesn’t represent Islam.
While the condemnation goes on, several Hindu leaders drew parallels with how Hindu gods and goddesses are mocked daily on social media, but take recourse under the law of the land to complain about such things but do not resort to violence.
Before this, Bengaluru riots too took place after an alleged incendiary post on an Islamic reverential went viral.
Around a thousand joined hands to burn down the house of a Congress MLA and a police station. The mob also torched more than 20 vehicles while attacking the police themselves.