First there was the uproar last year over an Indian couple posting a short video on Twitter saying they were Muslim, not Hindu. It went viral, making news everywhere. And it prompted the Supreme Court to order an inquiry into whether the Hindu forces targeted the couple because of their faith. The official report indicated that, in the eyes of some right-wing groups, the couple had desecrated Hindu temples by walking past them without covering their heads.
This week, yet another Indian couple is in trouble for posting a video on social media showing their Hindu Muslim face-pulling to make Hindus laugh. It was posted to the Hindujas Bodybuilder Instagram page on Sunday and has now been removed. But not before a million hits on YouTube and millions more on social media.
I’m a Hindu bodybuilder, it started with a smile. Posted by Hindujas Bodybuilder on Sunday, October 14, 2018
The couple, both from Maharashtra, are both in their early 20s. They posted the video to celebrate Krishna – the Hindu god who has 3 personalities: Krishna (Rishikesh), Krishna (Chennai) and Krishna (Ramallah). The video shows one couple pulling each other’s faces and heads and trying to mimic Krishna.
After the video went viral, people on social media assumed that the couple was Muslim, which triggered fierce hate comments and death threats. “What woman/young men can justify such slandering? They should be ‘struck from earth’ by fire,” one Facebook user wrote.
The couple are trying to move forward. “We always seek good people. This time we got a man who loves and cares for me and when he saw something in me, he’s done that for me,” the woman told NDTV.
But, needless to say, there is still a lot of chatter. The women are facing death threats in the telephone, mail and social media, so the two have deleted their Facebook and Instagram accounts.
In the video, the couple are shown trying to portray Indian deities with their opponents’ faces. But the Hinduja bodybuilder page had also mocked other followers of Hinduism, people of other religions, and Muslims and Christians.
Warning, this video contains content some may find offensive:
