Off late, an attempt is being made to target ordinary citizens, who voice their opinion on social media. They are called “trolls”, labelled as being crass, low-class, abusive, when many of them are not even remotely abusive. It doesn’t take much for the left liberals to equate these “trolls” to jihadi terrorists as well. If by chance any such person is followed by the Prime Minister or any other BJP functionary, then quickly the argument is made that these people are trained, promoted and encouraged by the PM himself.

Here are some tweets by another private citizen:

Going by the language and tenor used, one can confidently brand this as account as that of a “troll”, using crass and insulting language. Ideally such people can be ignored. But things take an interesting turn when we see that this account in fact belongs to a journalist. Madam Ifrah Mufti has been a journalist with The Indian Express and is currently working with the Hindustan Times:

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Coming back to the above tweets, this media person refers to PM Modi as a “Jaahil”. A “Jaahil”? Really, this is the language that a Hindustan Times journo uses for India’s Prime Minister? Further, this Hindustan Times journo goes further to make a direct attack on the humble origins of Prime Minister Modi. Can you imagine a single person on the media going into the dubious pre-marriage past of Sonia Gandhi?

Wow, simply wow! A journalist for a major national media house calls Modi a “Jaahil” simply because he started life as a humble tea seller. The class hatred in this tweet is too disgusting for me to separately put in words.

In fact, this “journalist” appears to be participating actively in the political trend #JaahilPMModi by retweeting several posts on this hashtag. Much neutrality:

For a while now, celebrity journalists, terrified of losing the narrative to social media, have been trying to run down right wingers on Twitter and Facebook by accusing them of being “abusive”. But clearly, Ms. Ifrah Mufti’s obsessive hatred of the BJP and willingness to abuse has not hindered her career within the Mainstream Media.

In fact, she has reported for the Hindustan Times on highly sensitive subjects, such as reactions to the Kanhaiya Kumar episode at JNU.

Ms. Ifrah Mufti has also been reporting on issues that are of critical national security interest.

This article above discusses the early life of Zakir Rashid Bhat, the man who was touted in a video by the Hizbul Mujahiddeen as a “successor” to Burhan Wani! (see here). The article by Ms. Ifrah Mufti presents several kind testimonials of Zakir Rashid Bhat as “tech-savvy”, “talkative”, “keen student”, “eager to mingle” , “fun loving”, “outgoing” and “very friendly”. Not too far away from the now infamous “Son of a headmaster” line.

Let’s summarize: Our attitudes towards active Hizbul Mujahiddeen terrorists are being moulded by writings of journalists such as Ms. Ifrah Mufti in national newspapers like the Hindustan Times.

Further, Mufti is also followed by the official account of The Hindustan Times:

Going by the logic propounded by our left liberal analysts, does this mean the Ms. Mufti is being coached and encouraged by The Hindustan Times to spew such bile from her profile? If PM Modi is often asked to unfollow such accounts, will The Hindustan Times be urged by our left liberals, to at least unfollow such a journalist, leave alone sack her from her job?