Nation outraged

Days after the mutilated body of three-year-old Twinkle Sharma was discovered at a dumping ground in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, the country has been rocked by widespread indignation with celebrities and netizens claiming that the minor was raped, had her eyes gouged out, and was doused with acid— none of it is factual as the post-mortem report concluded that the victim wasn’t raped.

What’s more shocking is the communal colour the incident has acquired with enraged citizens comparing her gruesome death to the horrific rape and murder of Asifa Bano in Kathua. Now. the misinformation has spread like wildfire on social media, with the potential to further aggravate the tension between the two communities. Condemning the gruesome incident, women rights activist Brinda Adige is of the opinion that, right now, the country needs visible justice and decorum rather than making this issue communal.

“There is a tendency to give this a communal perspective, rather than looking at it as a crime committed against children,” says Brinda. “The whole notion of nationalism is going into a different direction. Leaders have become agencies. They should be questioned. We need to be talking about how children and women are not safe, rather someone belonging to a particular religion is not safe,” she asserts.

Amidst indignation, some even didn’t spare the Bollywood celebrities for not raising their voices against the crime, criticising them for their double standards. Sonam K Ahuja, Swara Bhaskar, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Vishal Dadlani and Huma Qureshi are among those at the receiving end of the hatred with twitterati calling them the ‘placard gang’. They are being called pseudo secularists for earlier taking a stand for Asifa and not for Twinkle.

In the similar string of events, a post from an unverified Facebook account under the name of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman raised a question against the same celebrities who stood for Kathua rape case in January 2018, holding placards with ‘Devi Sthan’ and ‘Hindustan’, giving it a communal angle. The minister’s post read “These pseudo seculars blamed Hindustan, Devi Sthan & entire Hinduism for Kathua but, Not ONE of these hypocrites remembered they are #Hindusthan today when 3-year-old Twinkle Sharma got brutally raped and murdered by Mohammed Zahid. No placards, no protests, not even a lowly tweet. Why this selective outrage?? Or they were not paid for outraging for #TwinkleSharma ?? #JusticeForTwinkle (sic).”

While the actual responsibility of dealing with these brutalities, irrespective of religion lies with the state and central authorities, this kind of attitude also highlights the misogyny at work.