Will repost ‘firing’ video after adding ‘Bangladeshi’ tag: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on March 12 said he would repost the controversial video showing him firing at two skull-capped men, stating that the earlier post was deleted only because it did not include the word “Bangladeshi”.

Speaking at the Panchayat Aaj Tak event in Guwahati, Sarma said the video itself was not problematic and only required a correction.
The video was originally shared on February 7 by the Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It combined footage of the chief minister handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated visuals portraying two Muslim men as targets.

Sarma said the issue with the video was the absence of the word “Bangladeshi”. “The video was fine. Just one word was needed to be added. They had to put the word ‘Bangladeshi’,” he said.

The chief minister also clarified that the firing depicted in the video was symbolic.

According to Sarma, the video was removed because it did not explicitly mention “Bangladeshi”. “The video was deleted because the word Bangladeshi was not written there. Constitutionally it was wrong, legally it was wrong. Next time it will be corrected and uploaded again,” he said.

He added that the revised video would not be posted from the BJP’s state unit account but from his personal social media account.
The remarks come ahead of the Assam Assembly elections expected to be held in April.

Earlier, one of the four co-convenors of the Assam BJP’s social media cell was removed from his position following the controversy surrounding the video.