Young bowler Arshdeep Singh faced communal trolling for his dropped catch in Sunday’s match that India narrowly lost to Pakistan, with his Wikipedia page vandalised to portray him as a member of a “Khalistan squad”.
The Union ministry of electronics and information technology stepped in, summoning Wikipedia officials to explain how such fake information was published. Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted IP details that traced the Internet connection used for the vandalism to Murree in Pakistan.
However, BJP leader and former Delhi MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa found in the controversy an opportunity to complain to the police against his party’s bugbear, fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, who had tweeted a collage of communally charged tweets targeting the cricketer.
Sirsa claimed that most of these tweets were from Pakistanis and on this basis alleged that the AltNews co-founder was involved with agencies of the neighbouring country in a conspiracy against Sikhs. Zubair has identified some of the handles involved as Indian.
He was earlier this year arrested for a 2018 tweet involving a Bollywood meme, days after he had highlighted remarks by a then BJP spokesperson that had led to communal tension and attracted criticism from countries with large Muslim populations.Sport stars being trolled is not uncommon but the communal tone of the attacks on Arshdeep, 23, reflects a comparatively recent trend. His senior as India cricketer, Mohammed Shami, faced similar sectarian abuse after India lost to Pakistan last year.
Some media outlets fanned the frenzy after Sunday’s match, a Hindi channel anchor claiming that “hatred and revenge” had fuelled Pakistan’s victory, and a newspaper website conducting a poll to identify the “criminal” responsible for India’s defeat.
On the Wikipedia vandalism, Chandrasekhar, the electronics and IT minister, tweeted: “No intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation n deliberate efforts to incitement n #userharm - violates our govts expectation of Safe & Trusted Internet.”
Arshdeep has been selected to play for India after several seasons in the Indian Premier League. The left-arm medium-fast bowler had defied his father’s wish to send him to work abroad to follow his passion for cricket.During Sunday’s Asia Cup T20 match, he dropped an easy catch in the 18th over that changed the complexion of the Super Four clash. He later came on to bowl the last over, with Pakistan needing just seven runs, and delivered excellent yorkers, taking a wicket and delaying the end till the fifth ball.He has received wide support from his peers, cricket experts and ordinary fans in the face of the trolling.
Commentator and former cricketer Aakash Chopra changed his Twitter image to Arshdeep’s.At Sunday’s post-game media interaction, Virat Kohli defended the young man saying anyone can make a mistake under pressure.
Former cricketer and AAP parliamentarian Harbhajan Singh tweeted: “Stop criticising young @arshdeepsinghh No one drop the catch purposely… we are proud of our boys... Pakistan played better… shame on such people who r putting our own guys down by saying cheap things on this platform bout arsh and team… Arsh is GOLD.”Author and commentator Harsha Bhogle tweeted: “When a player is down is when you have to reach out to him so he emerges stronger. Saying nasty things about Arshdeep does nobody any good. We have all made mistakes under pressure. This is the time to back him. He will win India a lot of matches.”
