On Monday (8th January), former Indian Express ‘journalist‘ Irena Akbar took to X (formerly Twitter) to express her support for tourism in Lakshwadeep because the Union territory has a 97% Muslim population.
The development came amid calls to boycott Maldives after the Ministers of the island nation made racist and derogatory remarks about Indian citizens and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Indians had vowed to support tourism in Lakshadweep instead of splurging their money on visiting Maldives.
As expected, Irena Akbar made it clear that she would not boycott Maldives (a country which has a 98.4% Muslim population). She however encouraged tourism in Lakshadweep on account of the fact that the inhabitants of the Union territory are her co-religionists.
“I am not for boycotting Maldives but I am definitely for supporting tourism to Lakshadweep because it is 97% Muslim,” she informed. The former Indian Express journalist added, “I will give economic preference to Muslims of India over those outside.”
Several netizens called into question her loyalty to her country. Others inquired whether her allegiance to the nation is limited only to the Muslim population.
Following outrage on social media, Irena Akbar deactivated her X account. On searching for her username (@irenaakbar) on the microblogging platform, the following message is displayed – “The account does not exist.”
Past controversies of Irena Akbar
This is not the first time that the former scribe courted controversy on social media. After Hamas terrorists stripped a German woman named Shani Louk and paraded her dead body on a pickup truck, Irena Akbar came out in defence of the terrorists in October last year.
In April 2021, she stirred the hornet’s nest by thanking Allah for the Coronavirus pandemic. She claimed “If it weren’t for Covid, Indian Muslims would’ve been in detention camps. I’m NOT being grateful for the virus which killed my aunt, sent my dad to the ICU & is causing tragedies across homes. I’m stressing the fact that while fascists were making their plans, God was making His.”
“It’s between the devil & the deep blue sea for IMs. Either die/live in fear of Covid OR die/live in fear of anti-Muslim state violence. At least the former doesn’t specifically target us & the public will eventually question the state. But in latter, the public would rejoice it,” she added.
In February 2020, she asserted that Dalits should never be trusted by the Muslim community. The Islamist claimed that the Dalits were the ‘foot soldiers’ when communal riots broke out in Gujarat in 2002 after a Muslim mob engineered the Godhra train carnage.
“They did the dirty job of gang-raping and killing Muslims. I have never trusted them. They are ill-treated by their upper-caste Hindu brothers, not by Muslims. We owe them nothing,” she wrote. Irena Akbar also called for boycotts of business establishments run by Hindus.
