It was certainly an emotional moment for Prerna Dawar (@theprernaa), a marketing manager situated in Delhi, when her 'unwell' mother stood up to pay her heartfelt tribute to the jawans who sacrificed their lives at the border clash between India and China on Monday, the night of June 15.
Taking to Twitter, Dawar shared a picture of her mother standing up for two minutes to offer her tribute, when India Prime Minister addressed the nation in a live session.
"Watching @narendramodi Ji live, he asked everyone to stand for our jawans for 2 minutes and look what happened? I don't know why this made me emotional coz mom is not at all well, she can't even stand properly nowadays and this," she wrote.
But what followed was just disgusting when countless Twitter users started circulating the post. And, not only random netizens, but also prominent personalities such as Prashant Bhushan - a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India - and Yogendra Yadav - politician for Swaraj India party - mocked Dawar's mother.
What exactly happened?
On June 17, Prerna Dawar shared a picture of her mother offering her heartfelt tribute to the jawans of Indian army who sacrificed their lives at the border clash between China.
But, to her dismay, Dawar found herself in the middle of chaos when Twitter circulated her mother's image, deeming her as a member of 'BJP IT-Cell'.
"The next day my friend informed me that people are trolling me on Twitter, and I was completely unaware of this," Dawar told FPJ.
"People started calling me Sanghi, and asked very bad questions about my father."
Soon Dawar found the images of her mother being shared on Facebook as well. "All these bhakts have the same mother with the same health problem nowadays," a post read.
"Such a coincidence," wrote Yogendra Yadav on his Facebook.
"Surprising how every Bhakt's mother looks the same," wrote Prashant Bhushan.
Here's another one:
After seeing the posts on Facebook, my family relatives started calling me late at night asking, "what is this nonsense? Why is your photo here? Are you a part of BJP IT-Cell?"
"The comment section on Facebook was filled with such disgusting comments, that one could be depressed just by reading those," she added.
"But I held myself back as I didn't want to get involved in political agendas. After having a sleepless night, I started receiving such messages again and then I decided to create a thread on Twitter to input my views on the chaos."
Check out her thread below:
Dawar also revealed that in the wake of such events, her unwell mother had to deactivate her Facebook account.
"They should not have used my mother's image just to troll. They're influential people, that doesn't mean they can do anything," she said.
"We all have been going through tough times, especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and rather than spreading negativity or trolling someone, all the influential people including politicians, Bollywood celebrities should encourage people to do something very creative during this time.
"They should think how we can take our country forward, and not bring down our very own people, especially a person who is offering her tribute to the Indian army."
Dawar clarified her intention to share the post was just to "encourage people to support and stand up for our jawans who sacrificed their lives for our nation at the border."
