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4 min readGuwahatiFeb 11, 2026 07:56 PM IST
The video in question, uploaded last Saturday with the caption “Point blank shot”, shows an image of Sarma shooting at a photograph of the two men. (Screenshot)
One of the four co-conveners of Assam BJP’s social media department has been removed from his position after a video posted from the unit’s official X handle last week showed an image of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma aiming a rifle at two men in skullcaps, including one who resembles Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi. The video had invited backlash from across the political spectrum and was deleted the next day.
Confirming this to The Indian Express, Assam BJP president Dilip Saikia called the post by the co-convener an “immature” and “unauthorised” action.
In August 2025, Saikia appointed four party workers as co-conveners of the social media department, all of them men in their twenties and thirties. One of them has now been removed. The social media team also comprises 20 members at the state level, a convener, two co-conveners and five members in every district. The convener is a 33-year-old party worker, Biswajit Khound.
The video in question, uploaded last Saturday with the caption “Point blank shot”, shows an image of Sarma shooting at a photograph of the two men, and ends with an image of him dressed like a cowboy and wielding a gun, superimposed with phrases such as “No mercy to Bangladeshis”, “Why did you go to Pakistan?” and “Foreigner-free Assam.”
“The party is concerned about illegal immigrant Bangladeshis in Assam, and for that, there has to be a movement in the society. But the party does not support the idea of a mala fide intent of targeting Muslims with bullets. It was mishandled by an immature and unauthorised person; the party took note, and we got the video deleted,” claimed Saikia.
Khound said the content is created and posted on social media by a team of party workers who work as volunteers. “There is no private agency involved; our graphic designer is also a karyakarta. Everything operates under the party department,” he said.
A more senior leader, Ranjib Sarma, is in charge of social media. On the ideation process and decision-making on the posts that go up on social media, he said, “That is not a fixed responsibility. It depends on the subject matter and on who has knowledge of it. If I get an idea, I can tell the convener, they do their homework and produce the content.”
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Saikia said that the co-conveners have the authority to upload posts themselves on routine matters such as party programmes and greetings.
“But he is not authorised to put up sensitive material, that too using the image of the Chief Minister out-of-context, without permission from the in-charge Ranjib Sarma or from the Chief Minister’s office. This post was not vetted by the concerned authorities,” he claimed.
Chief Minister Sarma, too, claimed to have no knowledge of the video. “We have registered an FIR (on the basis of a complaint by Congress MLAs). In fact, one of our BJP people has also filed a case, saying that this is a video about which we are angry because in Assam, everybody knows that we are not against Assamese Muslims. We are against Bangladeshi Muslims, whom we call Miya Muslims. That photograph should have made the differences between Bangladeshi Muslims and Indian Muslims. BJP as a party and I as a human being do not support anything that goes against the Assamese Muslim community,” he said.
This is not the first time that the BJP Assam X has been in the line of fire. In September last year, the handle, which has over 2 lakh followers, had posted an AI-generated video with the text ‘Assam without BJP’. It showed images such as a man in a skull-cap cutting meat by the road with the text ‘beef legalisation’, of men in skullcaps and women in burkhas and hijabs in different locations such as tea gardens, the airport, in an amusement park and a stadium in Guwahati, in Ahom dynasty monument Rang Ghar, and walking across a border fence in lines with the text ‘illegal immigrants’. The following month, the Supreme Court issued a notice on a plea seeking directions to X and the official handle of Assam BJP to take down that video.
Sukrita Baruah is a Principal Correspondent for The Indian Express, based in Guwahati. From this strategic hub, she provides comprehensive, ground-level coverage of India's North East, a region characterized by its complex ethnic diversity, geopolitical significance, and unique developmental challenges. Expertise and Experience Ethnic & Social Dynamics: Deep-dive coverage of regional conflicts (such as the crisis in Manipur) and peace-building efforts. Border & Geopolitics: Tracking developments along India’s international borders and their impact on local communities. Governance & Policy: Reporting on state elections, tribal council decisions, and the implementation of central schemes in the North East. Specialized Education Background: Prior to her current role, Sukrita was a dedicated Education Correspondent for The Indian Express in Delhi. This experience provided her with a sharp analytical lens for: Policy Analysis: Evaluating the National Education Policy (NEP) and university-level reforms. Student Affairs: Covering high-stakes stories regarding campus politics, national entrance exams, and the challenges within the primary and secondary education sectors. ... Read More
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