BBMP South War Room Has 205 Employees, Only 17 Were Muslims And Were Sacked At The Behest Of Tejasvi Surya, Commissioner Has No Answer Why

Seventeen Muslim employees of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) War Room were sacked from their job without providing any reason, at the behest of Bangalore South MP and president of the BJP Youth Morcha Tejasvi Surya. When reporters at a press conference held by BBMP Commissioner Gaurav Gupta on Wednesday asked why only Muslim employees were targeted, he had no answer and dodged the question.

In view of the shortages of beds amid the surge in COVID-19 cases, the Karnataka government had set up war rooms in the BBMP zones to allot hospital beds for patients in Bengaluru. The South zone war room has 205 designates telecallers, of which only 17 were Muslims.

On Tuesday, in the video of the incident that has since gone viral, Tejasvi Surya, accompanied by BJP MLAs Satish Reddy, Ravi Subramanya, and Uday Garudachar is seen barging into a BBMP COVID war room and asking officers present if BBMP (city municipal corporation) was a Hajj Bhavan or a Madrasa to recruit Muslims.

Surya is seen asking the BBMP official what process was followed to recruit the volunteers in the COVID war room, and read out a list of 17 people, who all happened to be Muslims. 

At a press conference held later in the day, Surya and the MLAs accused city municipal officials of accepting bribes to allot hospital beds and of allegedly creating artificial scarcity.

Surya is then seen asking officials to immediately sack the 17 Muslim employees and start an investigation against them. He did not furnish any reason, what their fault was, and among all the 205 employees only these 17 people should be sacked, except that they belonged to a particular community.

The 17 people were sacked immediately.

The Cognate got in touch with some of the sacked employees, who said that they were not given any reason why they were removed from their jobs. They, however, did not answer any more questions, saying that they were advised by their legal counsel to not speak to the media.

Social media and WhatsApp groups have been flooded by hate messages against the 17, calling them “terrorists” and “murderers”. The vicious messages also targeted BBMP Joint Commissioner Sarfaraz Khan, on the virtue of him being a Muslim. He later issued a clarification on his Facebook page that he has no role in the war room and that the centre was run by a special health commissioner.

The messages also targeted BBMP Nodal Officer Dr Rehan Shahed, and circulated images of his wife and children, calling him a “terrorist”.

Widespread Criticism

Surya and the BJP were slammed for deliberately targeting the Muslim community and for communalizing the pandemic like they had done last year.

Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly Siddaramaiah termed the BJP leaders’ conduct as “really unfortunate and insensitive”. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the former CM said, “Tejasvi Surya and other MLAs were seen asking if the workers were appointed to run a madrasa after reading out the names. Kannadigas are asking if Yediyurappa, his council of ministers, MLAs and MPs are elected to run Hindu burial grounds?”

Further, in a series of tweets, Siddaramaiah wrote, “It is really unfortunate & insensitive on the part of @BJP4Karnataka MP @Tejasvi_Surya to communalise the issue. From food to death, BJP leaders want to earn political mileage by targeting few communities.”

Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain and AICC spokesperson Brijesh Kalappa released a list of 205 employees working at the BBMP South Zone war room, condemning the BJP leaders’ action to selectively read out only 17 Muslim names from the same.

“For instance, MP Tejasvi Surya could see (Employee) Number 42 Zameer Pasha and number 49 Nuhiya Nazmeen on the list, he has not seen other names in the list such as Bindu (Employee number 50), Ranjitha (51), and Vinutha (52),” Kalappa specified.

Vinay Sreenivasa, an advocate and a member of the Alternative Law Forum urged Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant to register an FIR against the BJP leaders. “They should be booked under sections 153A (promoting enmity) and 295A (outraging sentiments), and 505 (2) (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code. In reading only the names of the 17 Muslim employees and making communal remarks they have promoted enmity and hatred,” Sreenivasa said.

On Twitter the hashtag #DiaperSuryaExposed  was trending the entire day slamming the controversial MP for blaming Muslims for the failure of the government led by his own party BJP, in the state and Centre. They reminded him and the BJP, how Muslims and Muslim organisations were at the forefront of fighting the pandemic by providing essential relief, oxygen cylinders and even giving performing the last rites of COVID-19 victims irrespective of their religion.