A few days ago three Burkha clad girls had managed to anger Muslim radicals in the state of Kerala, who objected to them performing an innocuous street dance as part of a flash mob. This dance was part of awareness programs which was being carried out by local students of Malappuram on AIDS day.
The Muslim fundamentalists condemned this dance by claiming that it was immoral and against their religious beliefs. One of the users even claimed that the end times are near and people are lucky that there was no Tsunami in Mallappuram.
On the other hand there some who trolled these girls and on the other hand there were many who came out in support of these girls, which even included creating memes mocking these threats. One of the persons who supported these girls was popular Kerala Radio Jockey named RJ Sooraj. He presents a popular program named Doha Junction presenter of popular Radio Malayalam Qatar 98.6 FM.
As per the Newsminute and New Indian Express reports, the RJ identifies with the leftist ideology, though not supporter of any communist party, by professing that “I would only call myself a Communist sympathiser, not even a supporter.”
In the aftermath of the controversy, RJ Sooraj in a Facebook video had taunted the trolls and had even questioned the hypocrisy of those who stood for Hadiya’s freedom. He also took a shot against them by asking, “What is your definition of personal freedom? Is personal freedom a gift you give to people who convert and come to your religion?”.
This though didn’t please the Muslim hardliners who decided to get back at the RJ by hurling death threats against him. As per reports, some of the threats which the RJ received were, We will burn you in Doha. We will hit you, we will kill you. We will put you in jail. We will make you lose your job.
Soon after that he cowered under pressure, and issued a video where he is seen profusely apologising for hurting any sentiments, and even claimed that he never meant to disrespect any religion. Possibly in order to further appease the Islamists, he negated the claims of him being painted a RSS supporter and a Hindutva bhakht aiming to insult Islam..
Apart from apologising to the radicals, he is also seen pleading that they don’t involve his radio station in this controversy, otherwise a lot of young Kerala men working there might lose their job.
The BJP though isn’t happy with this apology and its State Secretary K Surendran in a Facebook post, slammed RJ Sooraj for apologising and even claimed that intellectuals were being selective in their response towards intolerance.
