New Delhi, July 10: A Facebook comment extolling slain militant Burhan Wani, posted by one of the JNU students charged with sedition, has again put the university in the crosshairs of social media trolls.
Umar Khalid, a history student, had spent almost a month in jail in connection with a campus protest on February 9 against the hanging of Parliament attack victim Afzal Guru.
As Burhan's killing by the security forces on Friday triggered violent protests in the Valley, Umar yesterday shared images of the funeral taken from the website of the Kashmir Monitor newspaper.
"I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting. These were the words of Che Guevara, but could have just been #Burhan Wani's too," Umar wrote on Saturday afternoon.
"Burhan wasn't scared of death, he was scared of a life lived in subjugation. He detested it. He lived a free man, died a free man. Doomed is the occupation! Indian state, how will you defeat a people who have defeated their own fears?"
Last night, Umar told The Telegraph he had received a barrage of abuse and threats over the Internet. His post was on TV screens and he was being accused of "spewing venom against India".
"This is an extremely disturbing method of bullying by TV anchors and trolls - of inciting a lynch mob to pick on me when the truth is that hundreds of people are writing about Wani's killing and the aftermath," Umar said.
At 3am today, Umar wrote a longer second post.
"Troller army, I accept defeat. Of course, how on earth can I handle hundreds of you trolling me in such a coordinated way. Yes, I was wrong, I should have joined you in rejoicing his death," he wrote.
"Traitor, terrorist, militant.... I should have also joined in the chorus. Pardon me, I seek your forgiveness. From tomorrow, I will join in to satisfy our nationalist machismo self. I will celebrate killings, rapes, torture, disappearances, AFSPA and everything else."
The AFSPA - Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act -is a law enforced in areas declared "disturbed", like Kashmir, and gives the security forces wide-ranging legal immunity to shoot and even kill insurgents on mere suspicion. Yesterday, however, the Supreme Court ruled that this immunity was not absolute.
Umar added: "From tomorrow onwards, I will be an ostrich, I will be a bully, and I will also be a coward who from a position of power gets extreme pleasure in humiliating the weak. But, just one small question, my (about to be) fellow nationalists, would that change the ground reality in Kashmir?"
JNU students' union joint secretary Saurabh Sharma, a member of Sangh student wing ABVP, appeared on television debates today to attack Umar's post.
"It is clear from Umar's support for terrorist Burhan Wani that these people have deep links with terrorists," he said.
"It is also clear that anti-national and terrorist Umar and friends are hand-in-glove with those who had been called from the Kashmir Valley for the February 9 event. Those who support terrorists are terrorists themselves and should meet the fate a terrorist deserves."
Students' union vice-president Shehla Rashid, a member of the CPIML Liberation-backed AISA, said that JNU provided the space for free debate that many news channels did not.
"Since February 9, people are being forced into self-censorship. It started with Kashmir but now if you ask questions on gender issues or even on hostel facilities, the trolls will attack you with the worst abuses," she said.
If Umar has cited Che in the context of Kashmir, Che himself had mentioned Kashmir during a visit to India in 1959 - but in a context far removed from politics.
Che, then a Cuban minister, had sent a note from the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru after an earthquake in Kashmir.
"Being aware of the terrible havoc in Kashmir, and willing to offer solidarity to the brother people and government of India, we wish to place at your disposal the cooperation of our people, to the extent it is possible for us, in order to alleviate Kashmir people," it said.
