Speaking in the Lok Sabha on the communal violence in Northeast Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah picked on a curious target: a citizens’ campaign called United Against Hate.

“United Against Hate – the name sounds so pious but look what they advocated. They said, ‘(Donald) Trump is about to come, we should block the streets’,” Shah said, insinuating that this led to violence in Northeast Delhi.

Earlier on Wednesday 11 March, Meenakshi Lekhi cited the same comment and attributed it to former JNU student Umar Khalid, who is associated with the United Against Hate campaign. “They call themselves United Against Hate but they themselves spread hate,” she said.

BJP MP from Bengaluru South, Tejaswi Surya, who spoke just before Shah, also made the same allegation.

So the question is: why is the Narendra Modi government targeting ‘United Against Hate’? First a bit about the group itself.