Was the Statue of Swami Vivekananda Beheaded by Muslims in Bhadohi, UP?

There is no escaping the phenomenon of fake news in today's social media frenzy world. Millions of agenda driven accounts exist both on Twitter and Facebook yet none of the social media platforms is taking any aggressive steps towards discouraging such acts and spreading communal hatred through social media.

@Uppolice sir please take action, this is very cruel inhuman act . https://t.co/xe4FIcmD1Z

— Doc pramod (@pramod_k_shetty) October 29, 2017

One fine example of recent times is the Twitter profile named 'ShankNaad', which is one of the 'most toxic accounts' that exist on the social media platform. With over 1.3 million followers on Facebook and, 17.4 thousand followers on Twitter, this notorious profile has been caught multiple times spreading fake videos and images with the sole purpose of instigating communal hatred. What was originally the actions taken by a mentally deranged man, became perfect fodder for this right-wing website to get their communal guns out and blame the muslims for an unfortunate incident.

BREAKING: Statue of Swami #Vivekananda “beheaded” / destroyed allegedly by #Muslims in Bhadohi, UP.
Is India Saudi Arabia ? Media silent. pic.twitter.com/ZnRC8X7q0O

— ShankhNaad (@ShankhNaad) October 28, 2017

On October 28, ShankNaad on its Twitter posted: 'BREAKING: Statue of Swami #Vivekananda "beheaded/ destroyed allegedly by #Muslims in Bhadohi, UP. Is India Saudi Arabia? Media silent. What the tweet was talking about, was an incident that had taken place two days before on October 26, at Sadar Kotwali, Nai Bazar Road in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh. A statue of Swami Vivekananda was found with its the head cut off and lying beside it on the ground. Akhand Bharat was the first website to report this followed by Patrika. Both the websites had mentioned that the anti-social element responsible for the incident was subsequently arrested and that the district administration has promised to install a new one in its place. None of the mainstream media websites had, however, covered this incident.

But surprisingly none of these facts appeared on ShankNaad's tweet. Instead, the tweet mentioned the religion of the accused and tried to make it a communal affair by writing that people belonging to the Muslim community was responsible for this incident. It also had no mention that the Bhadohi police had arrested the perpetrators.And since no one bothered to fact check the tweet with the original news, it got retweeted more than 2,600 times.

One responsible citizen, however, did tweet this to the Bhadohi police asking whether they had taken any steps towards catching the 'Muslims'. The Bhadohi police's twitter account replied to him saying that the accused had already been arrested, his name being Premchandra Gautam, son of Neeraj Gautam. They further stated that the accused was arrested at 12:55 pm on 26th October. Another fact-checking website BoomLive.in that had originaly reported the story, spoke to additional SP of Bhadohi, Sanjay Kumar, who rubbished the claims made by ShankNaad's tweet and stated that the accused was mentally challenged.

The question that arises from this incident is that till when will the police and concerned authorities keep ignoring these accounts on social media? Because till now these are just rumours and fake news that the ring-wing Hindutwa accounts are spreading to spark communal incidents. But who is to say that tomorrow this will turn into another act of violence? Who will the authorities blame when thousands will get butchered at the hands of these extremists?