Muslim Rage Boy

Also published on Twitter

There have been recent attempts to whitewash the so-called “Muslim rage boy”, claiming that his sister died during an Indian army raid and his rage was a reaction to this.

This man (Shakeel Ahmad Bhat) joined the Pakistan-affiliated terror group Al-Umar-Mujahideen in 1990 at the age of 13, prompting this police raid on his home (which he blames for his sister’s death).

His story about his sister’s death is wildly inconsistent:

• to British writer Patrick French he claimed that the police threw her out of the window in 1992 when she was 18
• to Free Press Kashmir he claimed that they pushed her down the stairs in 1986 when she was 12
• to Hindustan Times his family claimed that she had a heart attack during a police raid in 1994 when she was 14

No other evidence exists for the claim that the Indian army was responsible for his sister’s death, apart from his own claim.

The protests he participated in were also not over his sister, but rather:

• against permitting Hindu refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh to obtain Indian citizenship
• over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
• against Salman Rushdie

To say that criticizing him is the “same story” as attacking a completely innocent man for his disability is … bizarre.

Sources:

• French, Patrick (27 January 2011). India: A Portrait. Penguin Books Limited. p. 332. ISBN 978-0-14-194700-6. When separatists started to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, the security forces arrived. Police who were searching for militants raided Shakeel’s home, and threw his beloved eighteen-year-old sister Shareefa out of an upstairs window. She broke her spine, and died from her injuries four years later.
• Zainab (2021). “How blasphemy’ gave birth to Kashmir’s ‘Rage Boy’”. Free Press Kashmir.
• Hussain, Ashiq (25 February 2011). “9th case against Kashmir’s ‘Islamic poster-boy’”. Hindustan Times.
• Rajghatta, Chidanand (1 July 2007). “Kashmir’s ‘Rage Boy’ invites humour, mirth”. The Times of India. India. Archived from the original on 27 January 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2010.