On 19 February, actor Swara Bhasker took to Twitter to share a collage of photos, which showed some women standing with placards, condemning the Pulwama attack. The placards held by the women read "I am a Pakistani, and I condemn the Pulwama attack."
Bhasker, in her tweet, had thanked the women, lauding them for their gesture. Her tweet had over 3.5k tweets at the time of writing this story.
One of these retweets was by one Murali Krishna, who claimed that the women are not Pakistanis but are from JNU.
This tweet had over 1.7k retweets at the time of writing this story.
Several others responded to Krishnan's tweet, stating that the there was no proof that the women were in fact Pakistani, and could very well be Indians.
ARE THESE WOMEN FROM INDIA, THOUGH?
The women in the collage are all part of the #AntiHateChallenge started by Pakistani journalist and peace activitst Sehyr Mirza.
Speaking to The Quint, Mirza clarified that all the women featured in the collage were indeed Pakistani and had in fact never been to India, except for herself.
“When I initiated the #AntiHateChallenge, mobilising and convincing people to join in was a major challenge. I was really glad when my friends, who are rights activists, agreed to join in the campaign. The other girls who participated are Maryam, Myra, Seerat, Shmyla and Areeba. We are all based in Lahore and haven’t ever been to JNU. I have been to India a couple of times but none of the other girls have gotten the chance to visit, as yet.”
WHAT IS THE ANTI-HATE CHALLENGE?
On 19 February, as cross border tensions escalated over the Pulwama attack, Mirza took to Facebook to write "“I won’t trade humanity for patriotism,” along with a photo of her holding ‘I condemn Pulwama terrorist attack’ placard.
With her post, she encouraged people on social media to join the #AntiHateChallenge to condemn the terrorist attack that killed 40 CRPF jawans in Pulwama, located in India’s Jammu and Kashmir.
The terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose founder Masood Azhar lives in Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack, which is dubbed as the deadliest attacks in recent history. This has subsequently led to mounting tension between India and Pakistan.
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