A video went viral on social media, showing a targeted vox pop with Muslim children, in which they were questioned about their opinions on Pakistan and Palestine by a woman interviewer. The woman asks, “What should we do when Pakistan kills us?” She questions if the Indian Army did the right thing by striking against Pakistan. The child, however, maturely responded that he cannot comment on these things.
“Do you know, the Hindus are in danger?” The woman asks, and one of them responds by asking her to explain if she knows. “Have you heard of Pakistan?” The girl in the video asks again. The child answers that it was Pakistan’s mistake to kill, addressing the victims as “Hindustanis” without mentioning Hindus or Muslims. The woman, targeting the religious identity of the child, asks again, “Are there Pakistani Muslims among you”?
The interviewer provocatively asks again what we should do if Pakistan kill us. “Was the Indian Army right in attacking Pakistan and killing them?” The woman asks again when the child does not want to answer or respond to the query. Next came the question of Palestine. The woman asks again if they have heard about Gaza, Israel or Palestine, and what is their opinion on what is happening in Gaza.
“Children are dying in Gaza, Israel claims the Masjid in Palestine, Families are dead, there is no one with the children to take care of them,” the child answers. The interviewer then went on to make a comparison between the child’s response to Gaza and the Pahalgam attack.
“Do you condemn what happened in Pahalgam, where 26 were killed? What can you tell me about that? You were commenting on the children in Gaza. What do you have to tell about the attack in Pahalgam?” the woman questions.
The video sparked outrage on social media, with many bashing the girl for posing provocative questions targeting the Muslim community. Some of them also questioned the professional ethics of such content
“It’s truly unfortunate and frankly shameful that a woman is going to such lengths to portray a 9 or 10-year-old as some kind of threat to society. Shameful,” a lawyer commented
“Who is this reporter? The media house should be named and shamed. This keeps happening coz no one reports them, we need lawyers who drag them to court on this,” said Tanpreet Sahagal.
