The students of Thrissur's Government Medical College are hitting back at social media trolls though defiant dance videos. In a clip that has since gone viral, a group attired in scrubs and masks can be seen moving to Boney M's Rasputin, presumably in the halls of their college. "#StepAgainstHatred" reads the text at the bottom of the screen - a response to the recent clamour about a hitherto unknown concept called "dance jihad".
The internet may be a gift that doesn't stop giving, but it can also be a place filled with vitriolic thoughts and venomous words. Days after two students of Thrissur Medical College went viral for their dance to a Boney M song, public sentiment soured as netizens discovered their names. It would seem that while two students grooving to the popular song was perfectly acceptable, their differing religions were not.
Over the next few days, many on social media attempted to give the situation a communal spin, with many seemingly outraged by the fact that Naveen K Razak and Janaki M Omkumarare had been featured together in the clip. One Kerala lawyer with a considerable social media following even took to Facebook urging people to "pray" for the girl's parents.
"I smell something wrong here. Janaki’s parents should be careful. And if they are careful, they won’t have to be sorry later, as Nimisha’s mother has proven," he wrote, in an oblique reference to a woman who had converted to Islam and then left to join the ISIS a few years ago.
The students in question however do not seem to be bothered. While initial reports had quoted them as dismissing the trolls, they drove the point home recently releasing a second video clip to the same tune.
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