New Delhi: A team of 12 members called the "rat miners" are being hailed as heroes along with the multiagency rescue operation teams and personnel who helped rescue the 41 workers trapped for 17 days in Uttarkashi's collapsed Silkyara tunnel. However, a sour moment broke out on X (formerly Twitter) when senior journalist Sagarika Ghose tried to highlight the role of rescue operation workers and personnel coming from different "identities." However, the selected names mentioned by the journalist came under question from X users, who said that she purposely named Muslims in her post and alleged that she was being biased in her praise.
"The roll of honour of rescuers at #UttarakhandTunnelRescue: DG NDRF Atul Karwal, Lt Gen. Harpal Singh, Syed Ata Hasnain of NDMA, Mahmood Ahmed, managing director NHIDCL, Cyriac Joseph of Squadrone, and rat hole miners, from India’s poorest sections, among them Wakeel Khan and Munna Quraishi. Politicians are intent on dividing us, but it is when India rises above divisive identities, that India can move even a mountain," wrote journalist Ghose in her post on X.
However, netizens and X users were quick to react to the post by the journalist. They saw the social media post by the journalist as an attempt by Sagarika Ghose to highlight only Muslim rescue workers.
Check the reactions to her post here.
However, not the one to back down, the journalist replied with another post and asked "haters & bigots" on her timeline to "instrospect."
"Dear haters & bigots on my timeline , when it comes to terror attacks, you are quick to name and shame an entire community of people. But when it comes to a herculean and extraordinary rescue by “rock” star miners, their names become unmentionable? Must introspect! 3 big cheers and salaams to rat hole miners Feroz and Munna Quraishi, Rashid ,Irshad ,Naseem ,Monu, Naseer Ankur, Jatin ,Saurabh, Waqeel Hasan and Devender(sic)," she said in her post on the previous statement on X.
Not just Sagarika Ghose, but few other tweets were called out and commented upon by netizens for bringing religion into the rescue operations. One such post below.
Successful Rescue operations
The 41 workers who were trapped in the partially-collapsed Silkyara Tunnel from November 12, were rescued after 17 days of effort and struggle by multi-agency rescue teams on Tuesday (November 28). The entire nation sighed a breath of relief as soon as first visuals of the workers walking out from the tunnel surfaced. The workers are currently at the Chinyalisaur Community Health Centre, where CM Dhami met them on Wednesday (November 29) morning.
