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Violent clashes between Muslims and Hindus recently occurred in the streets of Leicester, England, mainly due to India"s hate-mongering and anti-Pakistan campaign on social media.

Indian right-wing nationalists reportedly spread several rumors to deliberately spread chaos, such as the kidnapping of a Muslim girl by Hindu groups and the deployment of masked Hindu radicals to participate in clashes.

According to details, the riots were the result of an organized Indian campaign on social media, the effects of which were felt in Leicester, where police detained over 50 people.

Experts said most of the inflammatory tweets, lies and rumors originated in India, demonstrating the power of unchecked social media use to spread misinformation and stir up unrest on another continent.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from fact-checking platform Logically said it was a prime example of how Twitter"s hashtag dynamics can actually increase hostility.

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Mayor of Leicester Peter Soulsby agreed, saying he had witnessed "completely distorted" information on social media about clashes between different groups.

Leicestershire police officer Rob Nixon denied rumors of a Muslim girl being kidnapped and urged the public to share content only after verifying it first. Meanwhile, fact-checkers also rejected claims of deployment of masked Hindu extremists.

Logically further revealed that approximately 80 percent of the tweets were linked to India, while the participation of high-ranking Indian figures further contributed to the unrest.

In addition, BBC Monitoring claimed that around half of the 200,000 tweets came from Indian accounts and contained hashtags such as #Leicester, #HindusUnderAttack and #HindusUnderattackinUK.

However, Twitter and a spokesperson for India"s Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.

India"s role in social media disinformation
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India"s dominant Hindu nationalist party, is accused by some analysts and rights organizations of waging a social media war against religious and ethnic minorities.

It came to power in India in 2014 and won an even wider majority in 2019 with the help of its social media and technology cells, backed by thousands of followers the party calls "Digital Yodhs (Warriors).

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Moreover, rights groups often accuse the BJP"s technical cell and government-appointed cyber volunteers of abusing religious minorities and sharing their misinformation through social media.

According to a recent report, Dalit rights group, Equality Labs, also said that nationalist, Islamophobic and partisan disinformation was being spread among overseas Indians through social media and chat groups on WhatsApp and Telegram.

The Equality Labs" Thenmozhi Soundararajan elaborated on how Hindu nationalism is one of the largest disinformation networks in South Asia, highlighting how derogatory hashtags and terms have become common, such as "presstitute" (referring to journalists) and "love jihad" (Islamophobic term in India).

On the other hand, the Indian High Commission in London issued a statement strongly condemning the so-called violence against Indians in Leicester.

Silent viewers of Indian disinformation
Pratik Sinha, co-founder of Indian website AltNews, said that much hate speech and misinformation, especially in local languages, is unregulated on social media as India is one of the biggest markets for it.

Note that Twitter, which has 24 million Indian users, has asked an Indian court to overturn a government order to remove posts on the social network that spread misinformation.

Last month, India"s Supreme Court identified television as the primary source of hate speech and asked the government why it was not taking action against it.