The ramifications of the Israel-Hamas war have sadly, not been limited to the Middle East. The tremors of that war have been felt even in India, with several Islamists coming out of the woodworks, revealing themselves as terror sympathisers. Several elements have come out in the open to justify the brutal terror attack by Hamas against innocent Israeli civilians calling it legitimate resistance.
It is pertinent to note that in October 2023, Hamas and several Palestinian civilians crossed over to Israel and launched a brutal terror attack where they murdered over 1300 civilians and kidnapped 100s. The terrorists who attacked Jews raped women, beheaded men and mounted unimaginable horrors even on babies.
After OpIndia received a tip, we realised that one of those Hamas sympathisers is a woman entrusted with the education of thousands of unsuspecting children, based on her social media activity.
Parveen Shaikh is the Principal of The Somaiya School, a reputed private educational institute in the Vidyaviyar area of Mumbai. She has been associated with the school for 12 years, of which 7 years were spent as the Head of the institute.
Shaikh holds MSc and MEd degrees and has been in education for more than two decades (according to the educational institute’s website). The Somaiya School has received several awards during her tenure as the Principal.
Based on the inputs received by OpIndia, we began investigating the social media handles of the school Principal, in-charge of the education of thousands of children.
At the very outset, we found that Parveen Shaikh does not frequently post online. A large part of her social media activity is confined to X (formerly Twitter), where she goes by the username ‘@ParveenShaikh1’. It is reasonable to believe that it is her real account because she has been tagged by her organisation using this username.
Schoolutions Podcast had also tagged her using the same username. Similarly, SIMHA TISS, a part of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, had also tagged her in June 2020.
When one looks at the profile of Parveen Shaikh, on the face of it, it looks like an innocuous account with not much activity, except posts about her achievements and the achievements of her school, like this one.
The Principal of The Somaiya School has a total of 239 followers and 241 posts, the majority of which are focused on the achievements of her educational institute.
If one looks at her tweets, the ones that she has published on her own, one gets the impression that she is just an educationist, however, the real story is revealed when one looks at her replies and likes on X.
Her most recent ‘liked’ post is by X handle Sulaiman Ahmed, listing the countries which voted in favour of admitting Palestine into the UN. This is perhaps one of the least harmful tweets that she has liked since supporting Palestine itself is no crime. However, it is interesting to note that the tweet itself is by Sulaiman Ahmed – a man who regularly runs propaganda against India and Hindus.
Another tweet that Parveen Shaikh liked on the 12th of April gives us a better insight into her ideology. Shaikh liked a post by anti-semite and fake news peddler Jackson Hinkle which hailed the children and grandchildren of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – who were neutralised by Israel for being Hamas terrorists. He called their death ‘martyrdom’, thereby revealing that he believes Hamas is ordained by Allah do heap atrocities against Jews.
Shaikh regularly ‘likes’ statements issued by Hamas in support of their ‘resistance’ against Israel. One should bare in mind that the Hamas and its sympathisers have terms to 7th October massacre of innocent Jews as ‘resistance’.
In one post she liked, a Twitter handle
The post had an animated image of a man in a black cape, holding an assault weapon. The caption prayed for him to be blessed by Allah. When we clicked on the tweet to find out what this tweet was in reply to, we found that the original tweet was hailing a Hamas terrorist – Hamza Hisham Amer. Amer would kill Israelis with RPGs in civilian clothing. He has been hailed across the board by Islamists and Hamas terrorists.
NEW:
— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) March 10, 2024
⚡ 🇵🇸 Hamza Hisham Amer, a Palestinian resistance fighter, whose distinctive clothing style gained widespread attention during operations against invading Israeli soldiers, has been martyred.
He single-handedly destroyed several Israeli tanks along with the crew.… pic.twitter.com/QHl4T5z1x5
Another post liked by Shaikh says “Resistance is not terrorism”. This post essentially legitimised the 7th October terror attack calling it ‘resistance’ and not ‘terrorism’.
While calling the 7th October massacre ‘resistance’, Shaikh also liked a statement by Hamas which denied that their “fighters” raped women during the 7th October “battle”.
The Hamas statement she liked read:
We reject the occupation’s lies about cases of rape, which aim to distort the resistance and cover up the image of its humane and moral dealings with detainees. We strongly reject and denounce the alignment of some Western media outlets with the misleading Zionist campaigns that promote unfounded lies and allegations aimed at demonizing the Palestinian resistance, the latest of which is the allegation that resistance members committed “sexual violence” during the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle on October 7. We consider this misleading campaign to be part of a series of lies spread by the Zionist propaganda machine, whose claims have been proven false, especially the falsehood of beheading children and targeting revelers at the concert in the Re’im settlement, and not the least of which is the lie of using Al-Shifa Medical Hospital for military purposes. The Nazi Zionist occupation seeks to spread rumors and lies against the resistance in a desperate attempt to cover up the image that the world saw of the humane and moral dealings with detainees and their good care among the resistance men, which a number of released detainees testified to, despite the occupation’s attempts to cover up and obscure it. We call on all media outlets and agencies to be careful not to fall into the trap of the occupation’s lies and tendentious propaganda, and to verify every information, to protect the truth and preserve the sanctity of the media message.
The statement is laden with lies – which is what one would expect from Hamas. The fact that they targeted partygoers at the Nova Music Festival is not a lie and neither is it a lie that women were raped. There are multiple survivor testimonies and images/videos that show the truth. Further, the fact that Shaikh likes a statement which calls the 7th October massacre a ‘battle’ itself reveals her sympathies with the murder, rape and torture of innocent civilians by Jihadis.
Another tweet she liked claimed that Hamas was not evil.
Her Hamas sympathies and that she believes what Hamas did on 7th October is right is clear from the fact that a day after the massacre, she liked a post standing with Palestine.
Not just Hamas, Parveen Shaikh supports Islamists in India too
Parveen Shaikh has a long history of simply ‘liking’ tweets that seem to conform to her worldview. In 2021, only a month after the Delhi anti-Hindu Riots, Parveen Shaikh liked a tweet by Sharjeel Usami, another accused, calling the entire Hindu society ‘radicalised’.
In April 2022, Shaikh liked a Tweet which blamed Hindus for Ram Navami violence and painted Muslims as the victims. In truth, it was the Muslims who had unleashed violence against Hindus in 2022 on Ram Navami. OpIndia itself documented several such attacks spanning over 5 states.
She also liked tweets extending support to Islamist Umar Khalid, the main conspirator of the Delhi anti-Hindu Riots.
Shaikh is also a fan of Zakir Naik.
Anti-Hindu tweets
Shaikh has also liked several anti-Hindu tweets.
She also liked a particularly insidious video where a child is heard talking about how going to the Temple only brings misery and poverty.
The video can be watched here:
Every single word is fire. pic.twitter.com/7nGyPVkKU6
— Harsh (@_ambedkarite) January 22, 2024
Interestingly, she follows a troll account named ‘Rants&Roasts (@Sydusm)’ and engages with its vicious rhetorics.
OpIndia found a vile tweet by Parveen Shaikh, wherein she was seen suggesting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a ‘dog’ (made crystal clear with terms such as ‘tommy’ and ‘fetch’) eager to retrieve a ball on the command of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping. And this was just the tip of the iceberg of disturbing social media behvaiour.
In a tweet posted in February 2022, the ‘educationist’ was seen claiming that the Indian Prime Minister loves ‘roleplaying’ after he wore a turban and addressed a large gathering of the Sikh community. “Why does he not join the film industry?” Parveen Shaikh had tweeted.
The Principal of The Somaiya School was seen insinuating that PM Modi is a ‘fraud’, ‘evil’ and enabler of ‘genocide.’
In a tweet posted in April 2021, she was seen calling the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister ‘modern-day firaun’ – an embodiment of ‘evil’ as per Islamic scriptures.
Parveen Shaikh was also seen endorsing the wearing of a Hijab in government schools, even though religious attire is not an essential practice and the uniform is a reasonable restriction on the Right to Freedom of Religion.
In a tweet posted in June 2022, Parveen Shaikh was seen claiming that Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan ‘sold his soul to the devil’. The latter had asked the Indian government not to entertain foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs.
Besides abusing PM Modi, UP CM Yogi Adityanath and nationalist journalists, Parveen Shaikh was seen endorsing the narrative of Gaza-based terror outfit Hamas.
Parveen Shaikh was also seen endorsing anti-Semitic tweets, making genocidal references to Jews and calling for the annihilation of the State of Israel.
While Shaikh likes anti-Hindu tweets, she defends or obfuscates almost all criticism of radical Islam. The ‘educationist’ was seen engaging in whataboutery to dismiss genuine questions over the collective silence of the pro-Palestinian activists on the plight of women under the Taliban regime.
There are several other worrisome tweets that Parveen Shaikh seems to have endorsed through her likes. She appears to be not just pro-Hamas but has also extended support to Indian Islamists. One has to wonder if The Somaiya School has a social media policy and the management monitors who they are recruiting to educate the children.
One defence in her favour could be that one usually says that ‘liking’ a tweet does not mean endorsement. However, as we have shown, Parveen Shaikh has ‘liked’ similar tweets for many years now. She has also responded to several such tweets which lend credence to the theory that she perhaps endorses all the tweets that she likes consistently. If she was using her ‘likes’ as a way to simply save tweets without endorsing them, she perhaps would not be ‘liking’ pro-Hamas, pro-Islamist, and anti-Hindu tweets consistently over the years.
OpIndia has written to Parveen Shaikh, seeking her response to her concerning social media activity and potential influence on vulnerable children. However, no response was received even after 24 hours. The article will be updated if she chooses to respond to our query.
