The whole nation was shocked and incensed after viewing the video of Kashmiri youths assaulting CRPF Jawans that went viral recently. In the video, unidentified Kashmiri youths were seen targeting the Jawans who displayed extreme restraint and didn’t even once react to the constant abuse by the locals:
This is Unacceptable ! Cant do this to our CRPF jawaans .This rot has to stop. Badtameezi ki hadd hai. pic.twitter.com/rZbqGbXk6O
— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) April 13, 2017
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Among the people who were outraged by the incident was cricketer Gautam Gambhir who took to Twitter to let his feelings known:
For every slap on my army’s Jawan lay down at least a 100 jihadi lives. Whoever wants Azadi LEAVE NOW! Kashmir is ours. #kashmirbelongs2us
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) April 13, 2017
Anti-Indians hav forgotten dat our flag also stands 4: saffron – fire of our anger, white – shroud for jihadis, green – hatred 4 terror.
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) April 13, 2017
In the 1st tweet Gambhir expressed his anger against the Jihadi and Aazadi brigade and in the 2nd put out his own symbolic interpretation of our national flag based on his fury against Jihadist and Terrorist elements working against India.
While most welcomed Gambhir’s passion when it came to his support for the army and the paramilitary forces, there were some trolls who decided to attack and mock him for his views and called him names. He was called a Modi supporter (as if people who don’t support Narendra Modi shouldn’t support the army) while some inane ones like Sagarika Ghose even asked Gambhir to be arrested for sedition:
If anyone should be booked for sedition its @GautamGambhir. The tricolour is NOT a shroud or about hatred! https://t.co/prA0Dfj0a0
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) April 13, 2017
Meet the new head of the Anti Romeo Squad – Munirka unit https://t.co/2xRNEyrIfc
— SANDIPAN MITRA (@SANDIPANMITRA6) April 13, 2017
New Modi Bhakt in town,He used to play cricket until he got kicked out of the team and now shows patriotism on twitter. https://t.co/h9mKsmeJ6k
— IamRayaan (@TheRayaanAleem) April 13, 2017
Calling the tricolor a shroud and a symbol of hatred is an insult to our national flag. This is sedition @GautamGambhir https://t.co/iKCrWDGaw5
— Prasanto K Roy (@prasanto) April 13, 2017
Actually, this raises a fresh query now. Just how involved are you in the DDCA scam & Jaitley? https://t.co/TLBvshtE9H
— N (@nethraa_) April 13, 2017
Rascality has its limits, stupidity none https://t.co/CznzgFtbXy
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) April 13, 2017
Why don’t you go & join the army instead rather than issuing empty, violent, hateful threats on Twitter.#Kashmir is not a game of Cricket! https://t.co/wFxWuZzkWQ
— Prerna Bakshi (@bprerna) April 13, 2017
One troll virtually called Gambhir a terrorist:
Saffron has been claimed by home grown Hindutva terrorists. Their *fire of bigotry* burns down shops, Mosques/Chruches, and even live people https://t.co/d3RKszUKmN
— Nayak (@SuzaneNayak) April 13, 2017
As seen above, many trolls were using the pretext of his interpretation of the Indian flag in the the current context to attack him while failing to react or respond about the real issue of the plight of paramilitary forces or terrorism which he had raised.
On a related note, even though all these trolls decided to attack him today, the same lot was supporting him when he stood up for freedom of expression of Gurmehar Kaur in the not so recent past. What about Gambhir’s freedom of expression?
