National Geographic Traveller India’s Twitter handle today ‘liked’ a tweet by ex-JNU student and activist Umar Khalid where he was mocking Home Minister Amit Shah’s challenge to opposition leaders to debate with him on Citizenship Amendment Act.
Umar Khalid, son of a former SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India, a banned terror organisation) member, is accused of shouting pro-Pakistan slogans inside the JNU campus.
On 24th January, Khalid had tweeted, “Amit Shah – I challenge Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav and Mamta Banerjee for an open debate on CAA.
Meanwhile, Shaheen Bagh Dadis be like – Aao Kabhi Haveli Pe!”
It is important to note that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had invited leaders of opposition parties to discuss the historic legislation of Citizenship Amendment Act once again even after debating it on the floor of the parliament. The opposition parties which had indulged in a rampant disinformation campaign against the CAA, however, failed to respond to the Home Minister.
It is pertinent to note that the anti-CAA protests which started as a ‘peaceful’ protests at Shaheen bagh, later not only turned communal as manifested with the Hinduphobic “Jinnah wali Azaadi” slogans but also turned anti-India as Sharjeel Imam – the chief co-ordinator of the protest openly called Muslims to cut North-east from the rest of the country.
Earlier, Zee News had retweeted tweets in support of Shaheen Bagh from its official handle before undoing them. In December, the official handle of Government of India’s Press Information Bureau, the nodal agency for communicating with media on behalf of the government of India, was seen sharing a tweet in support of the Jamia rioters with hashtags like #SOSJamia, #RejectCAB and #StopViolenceAgainstStudents. After the tweets created a buzz on the social media amidst the news of Delhi Police’s crackdown on the Jamia rioters, PIB soon shared a tweet saying that the tweet in support of the Jamia rioters was ‘inadvertently’ done by one of the members of their social media team. They stated that the person had shared ‘her’ personal comments on the Jamia matter and they ‘deeply regret’ the error.
