Hyderabad: India’s tennis star Sania Mirza has strongly condemned the incidents of rapes of a 8 year old girl in Jammu and 16 year old girl in Unnao and hit back at the trolls who questioned her nationality and right to raise her voice on such atrocities.
As the nation was in the grip of grief and anger over the brutal incident of rape and murder of 8 year old girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the rape of another young girl in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, the ace tennis star Sania took to social media to express her anguish over the incidents.
Sania who celebrated her 8th wedding anniversary with her Pakistani cricketer husband Shoaib Malik yesterday tweeted a series of messages on the two shocking incidents.
“A 8 year old is drugged, raped and murdered and another one is fighting for justice for herself and the death of her father in custody. We have a choice either raise your voice or be a silent spectator. ‘Stand up for what is right even if you are standing alone’” she tweeted with the hashtags of Kathua and Unnao.
While quoting the report of The New York Times on the atrocities, Sania also wrote another tweet, “is this really the kind of country we want to be known as to the world today?? If we cant stand up now for this 8 year old girl regardless of our gender, caste, colour or religions then we don’t stand for anything in this world. not even humanity … makes me sick to the stomach”.
She called for justice to the victims in another message. “Justice needs to be done … for the sake of keeping our faith in the judiciary and the system alive. I really hope and pray justice is done and soon”.
However soon some trolls began commenting against the Hyderabad based tennis player. One of them questioned her nationality. “With all respect madam which country are you talking about. Last time I checked u had married into Pakistan. You no longer are a Indian. And if u must tweet then also tweet for the innocents killed by Pak terror outfits”, the troll tweeted, only to earn a sharp rebuttal from Sania.
“first of all nobody marries ‘into” anywhere. you marry a person! Secondly NO LOW LIFE like you will tell me which country I belong to. I play for India, I am Indian and always will be. and may be if you look beyond religions and country one day you may just also stand for humanity!”, she shot back.
When another troll wrote that he could not recollect her tweeting for Nirbhaya or any other rape incidents of Hindu girls, Sania replied, “Are you serious man?? Like what’s wrong with you? How can you even bring religion into this? Every horrid crime needs to stop regardless of the religion of the victim or culprit!!”
It is not the first time that Sania had to face controversy over her nationality since her marriage to Lahore-based cricketer Shoaib Malik on April 12, 2010.
BJP legislator in Telangana K Lakshman had even called her the “daughter-in-law” of Pakistan objecting to the decision of the state government to appoint her the Brand Ambassador of the state.
