Due to all the upheaval in the Kashmiri valley, which includes stone pelting by some local Kashmiri youth and assault on the para-military forces, some fringe groups took up the opportunity to spread hatred against all Kashmiris who live in different parts of India.
This had prompted the Home Minister Rajnath Singh to give a strong advisory to states to ensure that the Kashmiris get adequate security and also called upon the states to ensure that action would be taken against those guilty.
Few days back, reports had come out that which claimed that 6 Kashmiri students of Mewar University were thrashed outside their campus in Chhittorgarh, Rajasthan. Chief Minister of Rajasthan had condemned the incident too. Later it was found that it was a case of fight over ‘staring‘ rather than an attack inspired due to ethnicity of students.
Now another such incident has come to light this time from the prestigious BITS Pilani University in Rajasthan. The report claimed that a certain Hashim Sofi, who is a research fellow in the Department of Science and Technology, found derogatory statements written on the clothes that he had put out to dry and on a wall next to his hostel room on the night of 21-22 April. After this incident Hashim has reportedly left the campus. The incident attracted outrage on social media.
These are the pictures of his clothes which reported had slurs inscribed upon them:
They read:
- U R Such a Shame ‘Kashmire’ dog
- Anti-national ‘Kashmire’ pervert no place fr u
While it is certainly appalling if he was indeed slurred in such a manner, Hashim it turns out is no saint himself. His Facebook timeline portrays his approval of radical Islam, which includes supporting violence and opposing the concept of modern nation-states and democracy. His views, not mentioned in the media reports, were found by people on Twitter [1][2]:
We are not suggesting that any threat is justified because Sofi holds such radical views, but it is important to investigate what could have led to the incident. Were those threats in response to him being Kashmiri, as media reports are suggesting, or in response to his radical and violent views?
Such suspicion grows strong as Sofi is reported to have deleted his Facebook account after his extreme and radical views were known to people:
UPDATE : he deleted his FB account.
But I have a saved copy (contains posts till 2015) ????
— Are Vo To Buddhu Hai (@orgdankster) April 24, 2017
Many people also wondered if the claimed incident has some other reality. The spelling of “Kashmiri” and the type of writing on his clothes led people to smell some conspiracy:
@TrueIndology Look at the way it is written on the clothes. Written in peace and it takes a long time to write on clothes. Spelling of Kashmire.
— ?gab.ai/Rbhrgvr? (@bhrgvr) April 24, 2017
Hope investigations will reveal the truth of this incident.
