Supreme Court issues notice on plea to remove Assam BJP’s video ‘vilifying’ Muslims

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (October 7, 2025) issued notices to social media platform X and the Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a plea seeking the removal of an AI-generated video that portrays a pejorative scenario of Assam being “taken over” by Muslims if the BJP loses the upcoming Assembly elections.

A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta heard the matter and issued notices to both X and the BJP’s Assam unit.

Advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the applicant, told the court, “A video has been posted as part of the upcoming election… it shows that in case a certain political party does not come to power, a certain community will take over… it shows people with skullcaps and beards.” He urged the court to initiate appropriate penal action against those responsible for circulating the content.

The application, filed through advocate Lzafeer Ahmad, stated that the video posted on September 15 from the official X handle of the BJP’s Assam unit depicts visibly Muslim individuals taking over key landmarks in Assam, including tea estates, Guwahati airport, Rang Ghar, and government lands.

“The video shows the gross failure as well as the complete disregard of secular values that the ruling dispensation of any State of our country is bound to uphold. It is further submitted that a State Government, elected and formed under the Constitution of India, is the guardian of all communities and is specifically prohibited by the Constitution from engaging in discrimination inter alia on the basis of religion, race, caste, gender, language. Thus, the burden of being fair, just and secular is far greater on an elected Government,” the application said.

It argued that the video “openly targets, vilifies and demonises Muslims”, suggesting that “the worst fate that a State can be met with is its takeover by Muslims”. Accordingly, it sought directions for the immediate removal of the video from X to prevent “further communal disharmony”.

According to the application, as of September 18, the post had been reposted over 6,100 times, liked 19,000 times, and viewed 4.6 million times. “Thus, the same is required to be taken down immediately to contain any further spread of communal disharmony, unrest and enmity,” it said.

The application was filed in a batch of petitions concerning hate speech targeting the Muslim community, including the widely reported events in Delhi and Haridwar in 2021, where inflammatory speeches and calls for establishing a “Hindu nation” were made. One of the petitions in the batch, filed by former Patna High Court judge Anjana Prakash and journalist Qurban Ali, seeks action against those responsible for such hate assemblies. Another, filed by Delhi BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, seeks a separate law on hate speech and rumour mongering, in line with the Law Commission of India’s 2017 recommendation.

Earlier, on September 18, the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee had lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at the Dispur police station in Guwahati against the State BJP’s IT Cell for “criminal conspiracy, abetment, promoting enmity between religious groups, and violation of the model code of conduct” in relation to the video.

“The video portrays visuals of legalised beef sales in public spaces, renamed landmarks adorned with Islamic motifs, exaggerated statistics claiming a 90% Muslim population, and a clear attempt to polarise communities for electoral advantage,” the complaint had stated.