Firdous Qadri
Angad Singh Khalsa, the Kashmiri social Kashmiri whose video recently went viral on Socia media after he joined the family of the three youths who were allegedly killed during a staged encounter in Srinagar is being trolled on social media for “old photos.”
Angad speaking to The Kashmiriyat said that he has been threatened after he recently joined a protest with the families of the slain youths’ who killed in the Lawaypora encounter immediately after one of his videos went viral on Social media.
Amid heavy Snowfall Parents of Ather Mushtaq who killed in Sringar Encounter Staged a Protest In Press Enclave Srinagar, Demanding Bodies and Investigation Into the Encounter. pic.twitter.com/tOxCsPfI4u
— Peerzada Waseem (@Waseemjourno) January 4, 2021
He said that the top brass of BJP including Naveen Kumar, the BJP head for Delhi is also targeting him on social media for a 2019 photograph. “I do not understand what crime have I committed if I demanded an investigation or the right over the bodies of the slain to their families,” Angad told The Kashmiriyat over the phone.
Angad, who is deeply anxious said that the Governor had also demanded an impartial probe into the incident and many other senior leaders too, “I was not saying anything on my own, neither did i add anything to what the family was demanding.”
Naveen Kumar, the top BJP leader taking to his Twitter wrote, “In the last 3 decades, terrorists have destroyed thousands of mother’s wombs and when the leaders of Hurriyat stood in support of those terrorists, the mind cried a lot. now when @narendramodi ji locked them in jail then in the farmer’s movement, The young man wants them to be set free.”
पिछले 3 दशक मे आतंकवादियों ने हज़ारों माँ की कोक उजाड़ दी और जब उन आतंकी के समर्थन मे हुर्रियत के नेता खड़े होते थे मन बेहद रोता था। अब जब @narendramodi जी ने उनको जेल मे बंद कर दिया तो किसान आंदोलन में?युवक उन्हीं को आज़ाद कराना चाहता है ये देख इसके पूर्वज की आत्मा भी रोती होगी pic.twitter.com/TgZBhMGnyg
— Naveen Kumar (@naveenjindalbjp) January 5, 2021
Meanwhile, Angad said he is also being targetted by Facebook pages, most of them based in Jammu and run by right wing activists. “I am not the only target, they want to target every sane voice and every voice of dissent.”
“I’m targeted under new propaganda, Delhi based top #BJP leader shared my image of from a Protest on “Human rightist” in 2019 Against” Kashmir Siege” organized by #Dal Khalsa & Akali Dal Maan where i can be holding a banner in hand with the placard #Free all Mainstream & Separatist leadership, now this old image is being blown out of proportion,” Angad said.
Hundreds of Social media users in Kashmir and elsewhere have been demanding the dead bodies of the slain in Srinagar’s Lawapora encounter with the hashtag #ReturntheBodies.
Social media trolling has grown in recent years since BJP has come into power. Indications of BJP IT-Cell involvement in the campaign are evident also because the Mumbai Police cyber unit has identified more than 80,000 fake accounts on social media platforms from various countries in Asia and Europe, all created on the day of a Bollywood Actor Sushant Rajput’s death, and that seek to discredit their official investigation (Ojha 2020).
A Study of social media content between June and September 2020 by a team led by Microsoft researcher Joyojeet Pal shows a pattern in which BJP pushed the narrative about Rajput’s murder in order to discredit Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra government, as well as the Mumbai Police (Daniyal 2020).