At a time when the nation needs to stand together to fight division and communal agenda, right-wing trolls are engaged in victim blaming since they refused to budge to their agenda.
Published May 04, 2025 | 5:24 PM ⚊ Updated May 04, 2025 | 5:24 PM
Pahalgam terror attack
Synopsis: Days after the Pahalgam terrorist attack, the kin of the victims are facing online trolls and abuse, only for asking to reject communal divisions and hate.
Following the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, Major AK Raveendran — popularly known as Major Ravi — had warned that the targeting of Hindu tourists was intended to create a communal division in India.
The army officer-turned-filmmaker had said: “If the attack was carried out in the name of religion, then the aim is clearly to incite a riot in India. We must not be influenced by this. Instead, in such tragic times, we should rally around the single emotion that binds us-our love for the country-forgetting caste, religion, and politics. There must be no tension between Hindus and Muslims. Those who think rationally will understand this. But the common people may not.”
What he had said is transpiring in the country, with several right-wing-linked individuals vehemently criticising the relatives of the victims — some using language unfit for public discourse — for urging people not to target all Kashmiris and the Muslim community for an act committed by a few extremists.
N Ramachandran (66), a native of Kochi in Kerala, was among the 26 people killed in the terror attack on tourists in Kashmir’s Pahalgam. His daughter Arathy had to witness her father being shot at point-blank range by terrorists, right in front of her twin children.
However, even in the aftermath of the tragedy, she did not blame Kashmiris for the attack. She said it was her driver, Zameer, and another Kashmiri man, Muzafir, who stood by her like brothers.
“When I left yesterday, I told them I found two brothers in Kashmir,” she said with emotion.
Aishanya, the wife of Uttar Pradesh native Shubham Dwivedi, witnessed the terrorists shooting her husband to death immediately after he said he was a Hindu.
After there were attempts to communalise the incident, she asked: “Why are we making this about Hindu or Muslim?”
“They were terrorists. They are not people. They have no religion. They are monsters,” she said.
Soon after the terrorist attack, the image of a shocked Himanshi Narwal sitting near her husband, Navy Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, was shared widely, depicting the horror the people had to face.
She was married for only six days and was in Kashmir for a honeymoon trip with her husband, who was posted in Kochi. Days after the incident, she said, “I don’t want any hatred towards anybody. The people going against the Muslims and Kashmiris, we don’t want this. We want peace and only peace,” said the woman.
She added that the family demanded justice for him, and those people who had done wrong to him should be punished.
Following the terrorist attack, several netizens, especially right-wing supporters have been spreading messages on social media — blaming all Kashmiris and the Muslim community for the attack. There have also been several attacks on Kashmiri migrants, including students, in several states.
Fringe right-wing groups and Hindutva outfits have seized the attack as an opportunity to fuel communal tensions, spreading hate online and inciting violence on the ground.
Following the statements made by the victims’ family members, the focus has shifted. Some people even started questioning their morality.
Several right-wing outfits, said to be associated with the BJP and its allies, jumped in quickly and started the character assassination of Himanshi. One person who hides behind an anonymous X handle said,” She’s an anti CAA, radical loving JNU revolutionary.”
Meanwhile, some others questioned Arathy’s love for her father after she said she considers the Kashmiris who helped her as brothers.
At a time when the nation needs to stand together to fight division and communal agenda, right-wing trolls are engaged in victim blaming simply for expressing their stance.
Replying to the hate and targeted harassment, several people came in support of Himanshi and other victims.
Lalita Ramdas, educationist and widow of the 13th admiral of the Indian Navy, hailed Himanshi as “the perfect Fauji wife”.
“You are the perfect Fauji wife Himanshi, true to the spirit of the service, the Constitution and to our secular values,” Lalita Ramdas, the widow of the late Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, wrote in a note to Himanshi.
An X user, named Mohit Chauhan, slammed the right-wingers for spreading hate against her.
🚨Just look at the replies on this post.
Sanghis are abusing the wife of a martyr Indian soldier. They’ve no sympathy with the victims of terrorist attack.
The Pehalgam terrorist attack is just an opportunity for sanghis to spread hatred against Indians Muslims. https://t.co/iIWwvOBjW2
— Mohit Chauhan (@mohitlaws) May 1, 2025
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
