Last week, 24-year-old Mohamed Faisan was assaulted by a group of men at Keevaloor in Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu after he posted pictures of beef curry on Facebook. Soon, visuals of Faisan in the hospital, with one arm in bandage and injuries on his torso started surfacing, prompting hashtags on beef to trend in the state, like #Beef4life and #WeLoveBeef. Now, Faisan has just recovered but he may be arrested, as a case has been booked against him for promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion.
According to the police, Faisan's Facebook post was an attempt to instigate A Parthiban, a functionary of Hindu Makkal Katchi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist party. Two others acquaintances of Faisan, Shahul Hameed and Mohamed Younis, have also been named in the FIR. All three of them have been booked for using obscene language and acting with the intention to create religious enmity.
According to a police official whom TNM spoke to, "It started with a quarrel between Hameed and Parthiban. Hameed is a water tanker operator and when he went to deliver water in Parthiban's area in Sikkal, he only delivered half and tried to leave with the remaining amount of water. The two got into a heated exchange. Later, Hameed went back and abused Parthiban's wife and made serious threats to the family.”
Following this, Younis put up a Facebook post eating a beef dish and allegedly with a provocative caption. He, however, deleted the picture. Hindu Makkal Katchi leader Parthiban then complained about both these men to the police.
Reacting to the police complaint, Faizan too put up a post eating a beef dish. Though the caption only said that 'Beef, is beef, my friend', Parthiban alleges this was targeted at him.
“So Parthiban filed a complaint against Faizan as well. Since these men are from the same area and know each other, we filed one FIR,” says the police official.
Faizan, Younis and Hameed have been booked under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion) and 294B (obscene language) of the Indian Penal Code.
The official said that while these acts do not seem problematic when seen in isolation, they are a series of events aimed at antagonising and insulting one individual.
"As soon as Faizan is discharged from the hospital, he will be arrested. But he is already trying to procure anticipatory bail in the meantime," says the police official.
Meanwhile, the men who attacked Faizan - N Dinesh Kumar (28), R Agathian (29) and A Ganesh Kumar (27) - have all been arrested. While Faizan had alleged that they belonged to the Hindu Makkal Katchi, the police say otherwise.
"Dinesh Kumar belongs to AMMK. None of the accused are from Hindu Makkal Katchi. But they did beat him up for eating beef," says the official.
While the case is proceeding, the police have prohibited Hindu Makkal Katchi leader Arjun Sampath from visiting the area for the next 10 days.