Former hard-hitting India opener Virender Sehwag, who is also outspoken on social media, has drawn a controversy with one of his latest tweets after he allegedly tried to give the horrifying killing of a poor tribal man in Kerala a communal angle.
Madhu, 30, a tribal man from Attappadi, was severely beaten up on Thursday evening by the mob that accused the former of having stolen rice. Madhu vomited and fell unconscious while he was being taken to the police station. He was declared brought dead by the doctors.
The mob violence was widely condemned. The Centre asked the Kerala government for a report and the state's chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan ordered Rs 10 lakh in compensation to his family. Congress president Rahul Gandhi called the "savage and cruel lynching of a tribal" deeply disturbing.
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Blaming three Muslim men for the killing, Sehwag on Saturday tweeted: “Madhu stole 1 kg rice. A mob of Ubaid , Hussain and Abdul Kareem lynched the poor tribal man to death. This is a disgrace to a civilised society and I feel ashamed that this happens and kuch farak nahi padta.”
Soon, many hit back at the former cricketer for trying to give the incident a communal colour.
According to the Kerala police, so far, 16 accused have been arrested in the case.
Two days after Madhu, a tribal man from Kerala was beaten to death by a mob, the Kerala police have arrested all the 16 accused in the case. According to Agali police, those arrested are Hussain, 50, Marakkar, 33, Shamsudheen, 34, Aneesh, 30, Radhakrishnan, 34, Aboobacker, 31, Siddique, 38, Ubaid, 25, Najeeb, 33, Jaijumon, 44, Abdul Kareem, 48, Sajeev, 30, Satheesh, 39, Hareesh, 34, Byju , 41, and Muneer, 28, have been arrested.
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Later on Saturday, Sehwag apologised for his initial tweet. However, he later deleted the apology tweet.
Here's what he tweeted and later deleted:
“Non acceptance of a fault is itself a 2nd fault.I apologise I missed out on more names involved in this crime bcoz of incomplete info & sincerely apologise 4 it but the tweet is not communal at all. Killers r divided by religion but united by a violent mentality. May there b peace.”
This is not the first time Sehwag sparked a controversy with his tweet. Last year, he allegedly bullied 20-year-old student Gurmehar Kaur when had tweeted a picture holding a placard which was similar to Kaur’s placard holding video from 2016 in which she had asked for peace.
The tweet by Sehwag said, “I didn’t score two triple centuries, my bat did,” said the placard alongside tweet text of “Bat me hai Dum !#BharatJaisiJagahNahi”.
Sehwag’s tweet came after Kaur – daughter of Kargil martyr Captain Mandeep Singh – changed her Facebook profile picture to one with her holding a placard that says: “I AM A STUDENT OF DELHI UNIVERSITY. I AM NOT AFRAID OF ABVP. I AM NOT ALONE. EVERY STUDENT OF INDIA IS WITH ME. #FIGHTBACKDU #STUDENTSAGAINSTABVP”. In April 2015, her video said, “Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him”.
The entire social media debate erupted after the violence reported at the Ramjas College when students and teachers clashed with ABVP members after the latter disrupted a session of the two-day seminar on Bastar over the participation of JNU students, Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid.
