SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: An influencer was asked whether the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had put him to work after he questioned a man for reportedly littering while stopped at a signal in the city.
Laishram Benedikson Singh, a Hyderabad-based influencer and digital creator, posted a video on his Instagram account on Friday, September 11, showing the heated confrontation.
According to Singh, after he took his phone out to record the incident, the unidentified man’s demeanour changed. Before the recording, Singh claimed the man said, “GHMC ne kaam pe lagaya kya (Did GHMC put you to work)?”
“Yeh Aapka to hi shehar hai Hyderabad, mere se ulte-pulte baatein kyun kar rahe ho? (Isn’t this your city, Hyderabad? Why are you talking nonsense to me?) Singh asked the man.
Singh recounted their earlier conversation and said that when he picked up the man’s trash from the ground, the middle-aged man pointed out the other pieces of garbage lying around, prompting him to pick those up as well.
“I picked up the trash he threw, saying I would keep it in my pocket and throw it in the bin after reaching home. But he said, ‘Toh mereko bol rahe hain ki dekho wahapar bhi gira hua hai; dekho wah abhi gira hua hai; usko bhi uthao (trash is over there too; it’s lying on the ground here; pick it up as well’).”
The man in the video proceeds to say that Singh’s bike, instead, is producing more garbage from the “sand” it is leaving behind. The man also asked a sanitation worker who happened to be passing by to pick up the remaining trash still lying around.
Incident becomes communal
Singh’s video, however, swiftly took a communal turn after comments on the video shared by other media channels started pointing out the man’s religion.
The man was on a scooter with a boy wearing a skull cap and another man sitting behind him. Using the younger boy’s apparent religious identity, users blamed the man’s actions on his “community upbringing”.
Singh even posted an Instagram story later of a screenshot asking a media channel to turn off comments on their post so as to limit the communal remarks.
“Posted the reel to spread awareness about littering. And then people came up to litter the comment section with an utterly bigger garbage. Who will save the nation?” Singh said.
To the media channel, the influencer said, “Can you please turn off the comments on this reel? I see a lot of hate comments coming in, targeting the Muslim community, which is not what I intended to do with the video. Thanks.”
SOURCE : SIASAT
