Virender Sehwag started the fire, but the media burnt Randeep Hooda at the stake. It began with an innocuous joke from Sehwag. It was an unnamed message which took potshots at the video of Gurmehar Kaur, whose ridiculous messages had been already trolled on social media and he didn’t make any sly references to left liberals or intellectuals or presstitutes etc. He was just plain using his freedom of expression to be witty and funny. Randeep Hooda’s crime was only to endorse Sehwag’s humour, and he was attacked by left liberals from all sides.
As detailed here, all sorts of attacks and charges were levelled against Hooda: He was called a bully and a troll, a B Grade actor, a misogynistic sexist, a BJP stooge. He was even panned just because he hails from Haryana, which doesn’t have the best the sex ratio (although improving). To his credit, Hooda handled all the attacks well. But today, the attacks moved from twitter, to full-blown media articles. The left liberals in the media establishment had come out of the woodwork to persecute and bully Hooda:
Fair to say, the entire left establishment in the media pulled their collective might to attack and brand Randeep Hooda as a bully, a troll, all because he liked a joke by Sehwag, a joke, which poked fun at a leftist agenda.
In response to this, Randeep Hooda put out a Facebook post, to slam the media and put his point of view across. He reiterated how liking a joke by Sehwag, had suddenly been linked to him “instigating hate threats against a young girl, shockingly by the girl herself”. He stated that if she had spoken something on a public platform, she must have the “courage and fortitude to listen to the voices against it”. He firmly said that he opposed any violence or threat to violence:
I have absolutely nothing against her and strongly believe that violence is wrong. Threatening a woman with violence is an even more heinous crime and the perpetrators should be brought to task with the most severe punishment.
He also slammed the people who were using her and said that “people shouldn’t fire their guns from young, impressionable shoulders. You can read the full post here:
Post Script: In the midst of the above “Dangal”, wrestling star (also from Haryana), Babita Phogat too stepped out on social media to slam the left liberal cabal:
Haryana ki hi hain hum Phogat sister bhi. Kya jante h aap haryana k bare me . https://t.co/ZWtl5fnEXJ
— Babita Phogat (@BabitaPhogat) February 27, 2017
