On 7 February 2026, the official X handle of the Assam Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) posted a video so grotesque in its symbolism that it briefly shattered the pretence separating political messaging from open incitement. The clip showed Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma mimicking the act of firing a rifle at framed images of Muslim men— one wearing a skull cap, another with a beard— while captions screamed “point-blank shot,” “No mercy,” and the chilling promise of a “foreigner-free Assam.” Though the post was quickly deleted after public outrage, its intent had already landed: fear as governance, spectacle as threat.
Critics across the political spectrum read the video as an explicit call to violence against Muslims, particularly Bengali-speaking “Miya” Muslims whom Sarma routinely brands as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The visuals— combining real footage with edited or AI-generated effects of bullets striking targets— were not accidental. They were crafted to dehumanize, to reduce a community to targets, and to signal that the machinery of the state stands ready to pull the trigger. Deletion after backlash does not erase impact; it confirms calculation.
This was not an aberration. It fits a long and dangerous pattern in Assam, where Sarma’s rhetoric has steadily narrowed the space for Muslim life under the guise of national security. He has floated proposals like reduced fares by Muslim auto drivers— later reframed as measures aimed at “infiltrators”— and urged citizens to practice “non-cooperation” with Bengali-origin Muslims: don’t rent to them, don’t employ them, don’t buy from them. Each statement is wrapped in plausible deniability. Together, they form a policy of social strangulation.
The now-deleted video did not merely expose bad judgment; it revealed a governing philosophy that treats minorities as expendable obstacles to a majoritarian project. By legitimizing hate, the state emboldens violence. By eroding constitutional equality, it hollows out democracy. Assam’s Muslims are being told, in images and in action, that their belonging is conditional and their lives negotiable. India’s constitutional promise demands more than deletion and denial. It requires accountability—political, legal, and moral. When a rifle becomes rhetoric, silence becomes complicity
The Indian National Congress condemned the video as a “call to genocide,” warning that such content cannot be dismissed as trolling or fringe mischief when it emanates from the ruling party’s official handle. Senior leaders K.C. Venugopal and Supriya Shrinate urged judicial intervention, arguing that normalization of violent imagery at the highest levels corrodes the rule of law. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi went further, filing a police complaint in Hyderabad on February 9, demanding criminal action against Sarma for “genocidal hate speech.” Even as authorities drag their feet on confirming an FIR, the pressure has mounted— and so has the anxiety of a community accustomed to being told that what it experiences is not what it sees.
Assam’s demographics sharpen the stakes. Muslims comprise roughly 34 percent of the state’s population, with Miya Muslims forming a significant portion. Since the BJP came to power in 2016— and particularly since Sarma assumed the chief ministership in 2021— this community has faced what human rights groups describe as systematic persecution: arbitrary arrests, mass evictions, torture, extrajudicial killings, and mob lynchings. International watchdogs, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and UN experts, have repeatedly flagged Assam as a site of grave abuses. Since May 2025 alone, over 300 Bengali-speaking Muslims have been arbitrarily detained or expelled to Bangladesh, among them Indian citizens. Nationwide, flawed citizenship verification processes have harassed and excluded nearly two million Muslims, weaponizing paperwork into punishment.
Violence has followed words. In 2025, at least 50 Muslims were killed across India in incidents linked to communal hatred, with 23 involving state actors. Assam has been a grim contributor. Police firing during eviction drives has killed protesters, including a 19-year-old Bengali-origin Muslim. Mob lynchings— often under the pretext of cow vigilantism or theft— have punctuated the years, from Nagaon in 2017 to Morigaon in 2023 and beyond. Each incident chips away at the promise of equal protection, teaching victims that justice is selective.
The bulldozer has become policy. Since 2016, more than 17,600 families— mostly Bengali Muslims— have been evicted in Assam, with over 5000 displaced since June 2025. January saw 1,200 homes demolished in Sonitpur; February brought 516 more in Hailakandi. In total, over 50,000 people have been uprooted from roughly 160 square kilometres of land, often in defiance of Supreme Court orders mandating due process, rehabilitation, and restraint. The message is unmistakable: legality bends when identity is suspect.
Defenders of the government insist these actions target “infiltrators,” not Muslims. But when a chief minister theatrically shoots at Muslim faces, when policies overwhelmingly harm one community, and when due process evaporates at the point of a bulldozer, the distinction collapses. National security cannot be a fig leaf for collective punishment. Citizenship cannot be reduced to an accent test. And governance cannot rely on terror as a substitute for law.
The now-deleted video did not merely expose bad judgment; it revealed a governing philosophy that treats minorities as expendable obstacles to a majoritarian project. By legitimizing hate, the state emboldens violence. By eroding constitutional equality, it hollows out democracy. Assam’s Muslims are being told, in images and in action, that their belonging is conditional and their lives negotiable.
India’s constitutional promise demands more than deletion and denial. It requires accountability—political, legal, and moral. When a rifle becomes rhetoric, silence becomes complicity.
