Corona update: Gold medalist wrestler Babita Phogat has been slammed on social media over her tweet against tablighi jamaat
Haryana: Wrestler-turned politician stirred controversy on 15 April with her series of tweets criticising Muslims by saying “ignorant Jamaatis.While another similar tweet, she said, “It might have spread through bats there, in India illiterate pigs are spreading the virus”. She used the hashtag #NizamuddinIdiot.
Speaking in Hindi, Babita, who also has a Bollywood biopic to her name defended her statements against the Tablighi Jamaat. On Friday Babita said she stood by what she has tweeted. “I stand by my tweets, I wrote nothing wrong,” she said. In a video posted on Twitter, she said: “Over the past few days, I posted a few tweets (on Tablighi Jamaat). After that, I started getting threats on my social media handles. I would like to say that I am no Zaira Wasim. I would not get threatened. I have always fought for my country. I stand by my tweets…. I wrote nothing wrong.”
In the video, she defended her remarks against Tablighi Jamaat members. She even dragged the national award-winning Kashmiri actress Zaira Wasim and said, “I am no Zaira Wasim, I won’t bow down to your threats.”
Zaira played the role of Babita’s sister Geeta in Dangal. The young actress quit the entertainment industry in 2019 to follow Islam.Meanwhile, Swara Bhaskar has slammed her for this tweet
Defending tablighi jamaat, Swara Bhasker wrote in her Tweet, “Babita ji, yeh statistics bhi dekhein. Kya inn lakhon bakhtgano ke Corona test hue hain? Kripya ispe bhi tippini dein. Aur Tabligi Jamaat ke program ko Delhi Police ne permission kyun di, yeh sawaal bhi uthayein. Baaki aapke fan to hum hain hi. (Babita Ji also see these statistics! Have these millions of devotees been Corona tested? Please comment on this too! And also raise a point why did the Delhi Police give permission for the religious program of Tabligi Jamaat! But, I will anyway be always your fan.
Counter to that, Swara posted an image that displayed statistics of the footfall at various religious sites in the country, including Kerala’s Aatukal Pongala, Tirupati temple and ISCKON, Ahmedabad. As Tablighi Jamaat features way down on the list, Swara asked Babita if all the people who gathered at these places were also tested for COVID-19. She also drew Babita’s attention to the fact the Delhi police had granted permission for the Nizamuddin event.
After this twitter war, many people protested after Babita’s tweet. #SuspendBabitaPhogat was trending on Twitter. At the same time, his supporters also came out in his favor on social media and #ISupportBabitaPhogat was in trend.
In the press briefing earlier today, health ministry has released new report according to which out of total 14,378 cases, 4291 cases are related to nizamuddin markaz cluster. Which is total 29.8 % of total cases so far found in india.