MANGALURU: Close on the heels of comedian Kunal Kamra’s midair run-in with news anchor Arnab Goswami, state Congress spokesperson Kavitha Reddy and two activists heckled Mahesh Vikram Hegde, cofounder of website Postcard News, at Mangaluru airport on Friday. In video clips of the encounter which soon went viral, the three women are seen goading Hegde to sing ‘Vande Mataram’ to prove his “nationalist” credentials.
Hegde, whom the women accuse of “torturing us on Facebook all this while”, remained silent and smiling as he waited to board an IndiGo flight to Bengaluru around 8.15am. Reddy and the activists – Amulya Leona and Najma Nazeer – went on to take the same flight.
Activists: This was our way of countering trolls
Reddy and the activists desisted from further interaction with Hegde during the journey or on landing. Hegde said the activists perhaps chose to harass him at the airport lest they be put on a no-fly list, like Kamra.
“I am always opposed to the likes of Kanhaiya Kumar… I have never individually attacked any of the three activists online,” Hegde said. “I too could have asked them lots of questions but this was neither the occasion nor the place for it.” As for singing Vande Mataram, Hegde said “anyone with common sense will know that somebody who attends RSS shakhas knows the song”.
The Postcard News co-founder has been arrested twice in the past for allegedly spreading fake news and misinformation. Reddy and the activists, who were part of an anti-CAA protest at Town Hall on Thursday, said they have been trolled and abused by right-wingers for their stance. “These so-called nationalists constantly abuse us online. This was our way of taking the confrontation offline. Hegde, on multiple occasions, has peddled fake news and once even tweeted that those who do not sing the national anthem are anti-national,” she said. In video clips, the women are seen encouraging Hegde to sing “Nada Geethe, Vande Mataram, Sare Jahan se Achcha”, offering to sing along. After repeated requests, one of them asks him if he recalls “the time Godse killed Gandhi”.
Reddy said they spoke to Hegde for all of eight minutes and not half an hour as he claimed. Hegde, however, said the incident was longer than the 2-minute clip seemed to suggest. Tweeted by one of the activists, the clip soon went viral.
Hegde, whom the women accuse of “torturing us on Facebook all this while”, remained silent and smiling as he waited to board an IndiGo flight to Bengaluru around 8.15am. Reddy and the activists – Amulya Leona and Najma Nazeer – went on to take the same flight.
Activists: This was our way of countering trolls
Reddy and the activists desisted from further interaction with Hegde during the journey or on landing. Hegde said the activists perhaps chose to harass him at the airport lest they be put on a no-fly list, like Kamra.
“I am always opposed to the likes of Kanhaiya Kumar… I have never individually attacked any of the three activists online,” Hegde said. “I too could have asked them lots of questions but this was neither the occasion nor the place for it.” As for singing Vande Mataram, Hegde said “anyone with common sense will know that somebody who attends RSS shakhas knows the song”.
The Postcard News co-founder has been arrested twice in the past for allegedly spreading fake news and misinformation. Reddy and the activists, who were part of an anti-CAA protest at Town Hall on Thursday, said they have been trolled and abused by right-wingers for their stance. “These so-called nationalists constantly abuse us online. This was our way of taking the confrontation offline. Hegde, on multiple occasions, has peddled fake news and once even tweeted that those who do not sing the national anthem are anti-national,” she said. In video clips, the women are seen encouraging Hegde to sing “Nada Geethe, Vande Mataram, Sare Jahan se Achcha”, offering to sing along. After repeated requests, one of them asks him if he recalls “the time Godse killed Gandhi”.
Reddy said they spoke to Hegde for all of eight minutes and not half an hour as he claimed. Hegde, however, said the incident was longer than the 2-minute clip seemed to suggest. Tweeted by one of the activists, the clip soon went viral.
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