NDTV Consulting Editor and senior journalist Barkha Dutt has hit out at social media trolls who have called her a “traitor”.
On Saturday, Barkha posted a screenshot of some of the abusive WhatsApp messages she has received on her Facebook page.
The first message sent is a screenshot of Barkha’s tweet, quoting the statement made by the Indian DGMO. However this was interpreted as Barkha informing the Pakistani DGMO about the surgical strikes.
The rest of the messages translated read:
“Informing the Pakistani DGMO is treason to the country, Barkha.”
“You better learn, you traitors; if desh bhakts lose it, then they will hunt you down and kill you, there will be nowhere to run.”
“If your mother has breast-fed you and if you have a father, then (be daring enough to) say this not on Twitter but at a street corner.”
In her response on Facebook, Barkha called the attack “a cunning and criminal vilification campaign to intimidate and scare and target people”. She went on to state that both the Left and the Right have targeted her for doing her job.
Barkha had earlier lambasted Times Now Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami for calling for action against “pseudo-secular and pro-Pakistan journalists”.
Read her full post below:
This is the criminal bullshit a journalist lives with these days. A direct quote of the Indian DGMO on how he spoke to the Pakistani DGMO on the Surgical Strikes ( one in a series of tweets on the press conference while I was anchoring) presented as my own comment- then mass circulated on forums like FB and what's app followed by a day of stalkers and death threats. I wish I could just say they are dumb- after all would anyone actually in touch with the Pakistanis on Surgical ops announce it on Twitter! !!! But this is not a lack of intelligence; this is a cunning and criminal vilification campaign to intimidate and scare and target people -more women than men- and shut us up. It also speaks to the suffocating environment one works in now. As a long time admirer of our Fauj and a rooted in reality realist I have never been a wagah romantic about relations with Pakistan. NOR however will I ever be a hatred spewing studio warrior targeting Pakistani actors like a school bully instead of terrorists and Pakistan 's deep state. I DONT sit behind a chair and call for war every night and nor do I believe in bhaichara and turning the other cheek when our soldiers and civilians are targeted by suicide squads. This apparently according to my Left friends makes me a "jingoist"- you should see the angry messages they send me these days. And for the Right Wing Hate mongers I have always been an "anti national" - simply for having a questioning and probing mind and for my body of work over two decades on the complex internal situation in kashmir. To be damned by the dogma of both is fine. It is my embrace of independent journalism. But the criminal and dangerous lies like the ones below- this goes well beyond ideological fault lines. This is a right wing hate campaign that won't stop at slander. It's actually an open call to violence against me. Before this an image of me taking a scooter ride with a kind young stranger in the kashmir valley during curfew ( because no driver agreed to ferry us) was circulated as me hanging out with a hizbul mujahideen militant- maligning not just me but an innocent man. What you see below is a concerted campaign to target and induce fear - and perhaps much worse- given the physical threats I have received in the last 24 hours. And I am damned if I will let anyone edit my mind or control it in anyway. So these ba@@ards who spread criminal lies can just go stew in their own venom ! I don't and won't give a shit.