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Sikh man who was wrongly blamed for Paris attacks is now being targeted for Nice tragedy

Written by : TNM Staff

Veerender Jubbal’s was one of the most widely shared faces on social media when Paris came under terrorist attack in November 2015. A photoshopped picture of Veerender- in a suicide vest and holding up the Quran which showed him as a “terrorist”- went viral.

After the attack in Nice on Thursday, that has left over 80 people dead, the picture is once again circulating on social media.

In a recent interview to The Guardian, Veerender spoke about how the experience last year has affected him.

An aspiring freelance journalist in Canada, Veerender had created his Twitter account to gain a following and share his work on the platform. However, when people started to share a morphed version of a selfie that he had posted earlier, hate poured at him from all sides.

Even though he tried reporting many of these tweets, the racial slurs and victimization did not stop. He even received a death threat on Twitter along with his residential address being made public on social media.

“I have always had depression, anxiety and OCD, but after the death threat, it got worse. I became hesitant to leave the house alone,” he told The Guardian.

The image also appeared in one of Spain’s biggest newspapers La Razon. The paper which carried his picture with the caption “one of the terrorists” later issued an apology for the same.

A report in The Guardian then stated that “It is unclear who edited the image and why, though some have suggested that Jubbal’s criticism of the Gamergate movement was the motivation for the smear.”

Veerender was put through a similar experience when Brussels airport and Maalbreek metro station were attacked in March this year.

“People started sharing that picture again and tweeting stuff like, ‘Did the police not catch you?’ and, ‘Are you still bombing places?’ he said.

Veerender’s last Twitter activity dates back to December last year.

This time around though people are sharing the older picture again, there are also those who have been speaking up against victimizing Veerender all over again.

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