Varanasi, Feb 28 (NIE): BJP Fatehpur legislator Vikram Singh on Tuesday deleted his social media post about missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmad having “joined the ISIS” after a social media backlash, claiming that he later found it to be an “unauthentic old fake piece of news”.
On Monday, Singh had posted on Facebook: “Ajeeb Najeeb/JNU student Najeeb had gone missing from campus many months ago. The BJP, ABVP and Sangh were blamed for his disappearance by his Naxal friends. Among them were Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi ji, Mani Shankar Aiyar ji, Shashi Tharoor ji, Gulam Nabi Azad ji and leftist media.Now after almost a year, it has come to the fore that he.has joined the ISIS in their global jihad. I believe that all those secular politicians who had so readily spoken out will give their statements today as well. Two points that we draw from this series of events are 1. Universities like JNU, those of Kerala, Jadavpur University, Hyderabad University, etc. serving as recruitment centres of global jihad should be watched closely by central investigative agencies. 2. Are Naxals and Jihadists exchanging soldiers as part of an agreement in these centres.”
After social media users lashed out at Singh, he got the post deleted. “My admin put out the post after they came across a news item claiming Najeeb was abroad, fighting in the ranks of the ISIS. So we put it out on social media,” Singh told The Indian Express. “But we began getting many calls and social media comments asking us to check the veracity of the news. When we checked, we found it was an unauthentic old fake piece of news. And it is wrong to accuse someone of such a serious crime till he is proven guilty. So we have deleted the post,” he said.
Najeeb had gone missing from JNU on October 15, 2016, following a scuffle with students, allegedly affiliated to the ABVP.
On Monday, protesters including Najeeb’s family and students from institutions like JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi University and Aligarh Muslim University stayed put outside the CBI headquarters in New Delhi, alleging that no progress had been made in the case so far.
Addressing protesters, Najeeb’s mother Fatima Nafees had said, “The investigation has not moved an inch since the incident took place. The CBI has done nothing except force me to run from pillar to post in the last one-and-a-half years. Instead, fake stories on Najeeb having joined ISIS are being circulated without any evidence. He is being defamed.”