Sangeet Som
Sangeet Som is a hardliner Hindutva politician from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. He is presently the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of Sardhana assembly constituency for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. This is his second term as an MLA from Meerut.
Born to an affluent Thakur family, the land-owning caste, Som is known for his communal statements targeting Indian Muslims.
Som is a popular figure among the Hindu right. He was facilitated with Hindu Hriday Samrat and Mahathakur Sangharshveer award by various Hindu right-wing groups.
He is one of the accused of inciting anti-Muslim violence during the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 that left at least 62 people dead, mostly Muslims, and displaced 50,000 people. Som was booked under the National Security Act for his involvement in the riots.
It all started with a motorcycle accident in Kawal village in Muzaffarnagar on August 27, 2013. There was a scuffle between Sachin, a Jat, who was riding one motorcycle, and Shahnawaz, who was riding the other. Hot words were exchanged. After the brawl, a group of Jat boys went to the Muslim part of the village for revenge, and there they stabbed Shahnawaz to death. Angered by this, the local Muslims caught two of the Jats, Sachin and his cousin Gaurav, and killed them. In a couple of days, a fake video surfaced on social media, in which two boys were shown killed cruelly by an angry mob. The video had been circulated by Sangeet Som, who claimed that the cousins Sachin and Gaurav had been killed because they had tried to save the honor of their sister from the Muslim youth Shahnawaz, who had been teasing her for a long time.
The Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission that was set up to investigate the Muzaffar Nagar riots indicted Som for making provocative speeches and circulating a fake video clip respectively, which led to the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar.
In January 2017, he was booked for showing video clips of riots to people as part of a documentary. Later he was given a clean chit in this case.
In March 2021, charges against Som and other BJP leaders were dropped after the Yogi government submitted a plea to withdraw cases in the local court.
To spread hatred against Muslims, Som often indulges in fear-mongering. He had alleged that many Hindus were leaving Kairana, a Muslim majority area in Mewat district in Haryana. However, the National Commission for Minorities submitted a report from the ground and concluded there was no large-scale migration of Hindus in the town.
In 2016, while commenting on the Taj Mahal, Som said traitors built the monument, which was a blot on India’s history. Though Som is known as a fiery, forefront leader against beef consumption and trade, he was one of the co-founders of a beef exporting company called Al-Dua.
Reference:
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/muzaffarnagar-riots-bjp-mla-up-7117491/
https://indianexpress.com/article/who-is/who-is-sangeet-som-taj-mahal-history-muslims-hindu-4893208/