A video by Delhi-based political journalist and author, Saba Naqvi is going viral on the internet as she called out hatred against Muslims. In the video, she talks about communal hatred against people of the Muslim community and raises some important questions.
"Do you know the pharmaceutical company which is going to develop drugs to tackle COVID-19? One of the big companies, it is CIPLA and the owner of the company is Yusuf Khwaja Hameed. He is a scientist and a businessman. Do you know that the largest donation for COVID-19 is also made by a Muslim business tycoon named Azim Premji ?"
She says in disbelief, "Yet, you want to attack Muslims day in and day out. You want to abuse them.”
She adds that Shah Rukh Khan has also organised 50,000 PPE kits and is feeding people. Her inspiration to make this video at this time is the social media vitriol against Muslims and also some vendors of the community not being allowed to sell their produce. She says, "I am making this video today because over the past few days we have seen very very troubling accounts of vegetable vendors of a particular community not being allowed to sell their wares in some parts of India." Naqvi also refers to a story from Gujarat where an Ahmedabad hospital has made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients. (SheThePeople could not confirm this independently however. )
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Apart from naming the owners of the pharmaceutical companies, she also cites members of the Muslim community who have been helping in controlling the pandemic by their charitable work. She asks:
" you want A.R.Rahman to disappear from India? you want Javed Akhtar to stop writing those lyrics?"
"What do you want?" she asked. "Should we all (Muslims) just go?"
She ends the video with a message for all to "think about it".
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"Do you know that the largest donation for COVID-19 is also made by a Muslim business tycoon named Aziz Premji ?," she tells adding that Shah Rukh Khan has also organised 50,000 PPE kits and is feeding people.
Netizens are praising Naqvi for saying what was needed to be said. Journalist Harinder Baweja wrote, "Really sad that @_sabanaqvi has to even say this but we live in grim times where we have to despair in the midst of hunger and disease," in support of Naqvi. Her video puts forth a relevant point in current times that India on social media and otherwise should move past communal hatred and come together to tackle the pandemic.
Naqvi's video comes almost a month after it was revealed that during a Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi's Nizamuddin, 3,400 people had gathered from around the country including 10 persons who had come from Indonesia. All the foreigners tested positive for coronavirus when they were discovered in Telangana. After the news around the Markaz gathering and attendees testing positive for COVID-19 went viral, videos including those that were unverified started to float on social media demonizing the followers. It has led to widespread hatred against those from the community.
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