A Hyderabad-based techie identified as Ramnagesh Srinivas Akubathini, 23, was arrested  by the Mumbai Police, for threating Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli’s infant daughter with rape. 

 According to news reports, Ramnagesh Srinivas Akubathini, who once worked for a food delivery app is an engineer from Hyderabad. He has ben accused of issuing online rape threats to Virat Kohli’s infant daughter after team India lost back-to-back matches in the recent T20 World Cup. Akubathini will be brought to Mumbai, said the police adding that the accused had reportedly changed his Twitter handle and pretended to be a Pakistani user after police began investigating the threats. 

There was massive  outrage over the threats targeting the nine-month-old daughter of cricket captain Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma last week. The twitter named “@Criccrazyygirl” was deleted after users called it out for its abusive threat to an infant. @Criccrazyygirl had demanded that Sharma and Kohli share a photo of the toddler, and followed it with a rape threat. 

Virat Kohli faced massive trolling ever since he spoke out on Saturday and condemned the abuse teammate  Mohammad Shami was facing for over a week. Kohli had said, “To me attacking someone over their religion is the most pathetic thing a human being can do. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but I personally have never even thought of discriminating against someone over their religion.” Kohli said that the social media trolling was an example of “literally the lowest level of human potential” and called the trolls “spineless people.” Soon enough, Virat Kohli, as expected, got his share of hate from right wing trolls.

The Mumbai police had been investigating several handles as Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma are residents of the city, stated news reports. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had also taken note of the threat and asked for an investigation, and had issued notice to the Delhi police, asking to see an FIR (first information report), details of those identified and arrested, and a detailed “action taken report”.

Mohammed Shami  had been singled out and viciously targeted by trolls online, and India lost the march against  Pakistan. He, was targeted as the sole Muslim player and was accused of ‘selling out’ to fellow Muslims of team Pakistan. It is well documented that Shami, a proud Indian, has often been trolled for his religion. Team India’s non-Muslim players took their own time to stand up for their Muslim teammate. 

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The post Hyderabad-based techie arrested for threating Virat Kohli’s infant with rape appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Trigger warning: Reader discretion and caution is advised as the report is on a threat of sexual assault. 

The worst hate is that directed at an innocent child. A twitter user in India from the account named “@Criccrazyygirl” , as fact checked by Boomlive, issued a vile and dangerous rape threat” to Bollywood actor Anushka Sharma and Cricketer Virat Kohli’s nine-month-old daughter Vamika Kohli. The account has now-deleted after users called it out for its abusive threat to an infant, and the the identity of the person who tweeted the rape threat is still not known. The criminal minded user demanded that Sharma and Kohli share a photo of the toddler, and followed it with a rape threat. 

Virat Kohli has been facing massive trolling ever since he  spoke out on Saturday and  condemned the abuse teammate  Mohammad Shami was facing for over a week. Kodli had said, “to me attacking someone over their religion is the most pathetic thing a human being can do. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but I personally have never even thought of discriminating against someone over their religion.” Soon enough, Virat Kohli, as expected, got his share of hate from right wing trolls.

However, the user who threatened a  nine-month-old infant has had many on social media enraged. However, there were some who tried to divert attention from the abuse saying the vile Twitter user threatening the infant was from Pakistan.  The profile picture of the abusive account was that of a woman wearing the Pakistani cricket team’s jersey. That was enough to set the pro right wing handles off.

Check this thread.
How Pakistani tweeples uses Indian names to abuse Indian cricketers. https://t.co/ssxLHoE0hq

— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) October 31, 2021

Once again it’s a Pakistani bot…. https://t.co/a3iickCCcT pic.twitter.com/SMrpxTx5KP

— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) October 31, 2021

Some handles did their own ‘investigations’ to conclude that the handle was being operated from ‘India occupied Pakistan’.

यह हैंडल 26 अप्रैल 2021 को बना.

इस हैंडल की Twitter ID: 1386685474182369290

डीएक्टिवेट के वक़्त इस हैंडल का लोकेशन “India Occupied Kashmir” था.

— Ajayendra Urmila Tripathi (@ajayendra_) October 31, 2021

However,  fact checker Boomlive and Alt news reported that  the abuser is from India, not Pakistan.

Lol nice try to distance yourself. The account @Criccrazyygirl is not from Pakistan but a Right Wing troll from Hyderabad. His earlier accounts were : @Criccrazyygirl, @ramanheist & @pellikuturuhere.
Here, unique ‘data-user-id’ (1386685474182369290) is same for all 3 accounts. https://t.co/qIVkcJRN6t pic.twitter.com/AmRlL9J7jb

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) October 31, 2021

According to Boom, their “investigation of past tweets by this account revealed that it is run by a Telugu-speaking Indian right-wing user, who used to go by the handle @ramanheist, and is not run by a Pakistani user.” The fact check report stated that the account @criccrazyygirl “retweeted posts related to Telangana and Hyderabad” often in Telugu and “ also retweeted right-wing content. This includes posts about BJP, posts by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and a post by Nupur J Sharma, the editor-in-chief of right-wing Indian website OpIndia. 4. The user also shared a post by NoConversion – a right-wing account that spreads conspiracy theories regarding mass conversion of Hindus into Christianity. The fact check suggested that the abusive user was “from India, particularly from a Telugu speaking place, and supports the ruling-Bharatiya Janata Party and the Hindutva ideology.”

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The post Hate Watch: Twitter user threatens Virat Kohli’s infant with rape, deletes accounts after outrage appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The batting machine’s arrogance and related transgressions have been justified repeatedly in the past with subjective sports cliches such as ‘fighting spirit’, a ‘player’s pride’, and even as a ‘sign of greatness’ — the idea being that many geniuses across many fields had tumultuous temperaments. This, even while he has been borderline autocratic, bullied the BCCI, coaches, fellow players, the opposition, and, last but not the least, his favourite punching bag, the media. All this has been bolstered and swept under the carpet by his record-breaking batting.

Yesterday though, Kohli clearly crossed the line, overstepping his mandate as Indian skipper, when he asked a fan to leave the country just because he found the captain less attractive as a batsman. The trigger point was when the fan said he preferred the Aussies over the Indian batters including Kohli, whom he felt were overrated.

Kohli’s statement has stark, dark implications. Beyond revealing the shallow side of the skipper’s psyche and personality, and the rather twisted nature of his mindset, it is reminiscent of Donald Trump’s statements on the national anthem fire that is still raging across America.
 

Is #Kohli asking his non-Indian fans to leave their country and come to India.. Or to sort their priorities? #WTF pic.twitter.com/tRAX4QbuZI
— H (@Hramblings) November 6, 2018

When NFL players decided to kneel during the national anthem before matches, in protest against police violence against African Americans, the US president came out saying they should all leave the country, if they didn’t respect the flag.

Closer to home, a similar narrative is being propagated by the Indian government — from the directive to play the national anthem at cinemas, to facilitating the branding of every citizen critical of the government as anti-nationals, and people who express dissent as ‘Urban Naxals’.

Perhaps, applauding a six from Kohli, could get you into the infamous National Register for Citizens (NRC) which has torn apart the lives of many Indians who became “non Indians” overnight. Will it, Mr. Skipper? Or should the thousands of NRI and PIO fans, who throng for the team’s matches when they tour abroad, relinquish their careers, lives and foreign credentials in order to properly demonstrate their loyalty to your team?

Kohli, as skipper, has perhaps taken it upon himself to ensure that the dangerously over-nationalistic narrative the government is taking India through at the moment is reflected in Indian cricket as well. The Delhi boy — his antics stereotypical of the road-rage inclined teenagers that one finds a lot in the national capital and its suburbs — should stick to batting, please. The moment he steps away from the crease to aver on something — be it political, social, or economic (his statements during demonetisation were silly) — he has always sounded out of his depth, thereby putting his sport and the exalted idea of the Indian cricket team skipper in disrepute.

The reach that the captain of the Indian cricket team enjoys is something sports stars across the globe could only dream of. The following for the sport in the country, which rarely sees emergence of world class sports heroes, is such that the captain is lifted onto a pedestal from where he not just leads the side, but also wields enough power to sway the mood of the nation. The team’s ups and downs are taken personally as if the common man’s lives depend on it, much more than say, economic policies, inflation, or the wasting of funds and taxpayers’ money on public display of national ego — statues!

That Kohli is the best batsman in the world at the moment makes his anointing to the rarefied realms by Indian fans that much easier. So much so that his every action will have justifiers and supporters, including ones who applaud Kohli’s dirty mouth — there is no exaggeration here as he uses the choicest of Delhi’s street expletives. Its bitterness is ignored, glossed over by flourishes from his willow. Sixes, after all, wash away all sins!

However, it is evident that Kohli’s influence on the team is not exactly positive, as his hard-handed leadership is breaking the morale and confidence of the team more than building it. Midway through the last Indian Premier League (IPL) season, one noticed that Kohli stepped back from taking calls as a leader on the pitch despite being the official skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Now RCB’s results over the past seasons under Kohli has been atrocious, despite having a lot of world class players in their roster.

Stepping out of the IPL, the iffy results of the Indian cricket team against strong teams, and the numbers, do not paint a picture of good health either.

Beyond Indian cricket’s fortunes, Kohli’s latest verbal transgression has taken cricket in general into disrepute too. Cricket’s biggest star of a generation seems to have forgotten that sport, despite being used by many for enhancing political agenda in history, has always played a role in breaking barriers and not building them. Cricket, played in a handful of nations, is striving for a global foothold, and would need a star who could rise beyond petty verbal assaults and shallow political agenda.

Kohli, by his actions, has ensured just one thing. He will never touch greatness. He is no Muhammad Ali. Can never be, even if he tried to.

Sports — be it football, basketball, athletics or boxing — have produced superstars who were unifying symbols for the whole of humanity to celebrate. They never were symbols of nationalistic fervour. National and state boundaries are fluid in sporting loyalty. And the men and women who have been celebrated as icons of their sport were aware of their stature and ensured that they paid justice to the faith that millions put in them.

Kohli with his best years still ahead of him, would do better to expand his understanding of the world. His fans deserve more, and so does the Indian team and cricket.

First published by Newsclick.
 

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