Gautam Gambhir, Omar Abdullah engage in heated war of words on Twitter over killing of militant Manan Wani

A war of words broke out on Friday between cricketer Gautam Gambhir and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Twitter over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Manan Bashir Wani in an encounter with security forces. Gambhir began the conversation on Friday in a tweet, saying that Abdullah, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, Congress and the BJP should be embarrassed that PhD scholar Wani embraced militancy. He said:

Mannan Wani’s death: We killed a terrorist and lost a radicalised talent. @OmarAbdullah @MehboobaMufti @INCIndia @BJP4India all should bow their heads in embarrassment that they left a young man drift from books to embrace bullet.

— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) October 12, 2018

Abdullah responded to Gambhir, saying:

This man wouldn’t be able to find Manan’s home district on a map much less his village & yet he presumes to know what drives young men in Kashmir to pick up the gun. Mr Gambhir clearly knows less about Kashmir than I do about cricket & I know almost nothing. https://t.co/oZ8hc5VcgH

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) October 12, 2018

The conversation soon took on a more acerbic tone, with the cricketer accusing the NC leader of being “hell bent on changing the map of my country by talking Kashmir to Pakistan (sic).” In response, Abdullah said that several people from his party have been killed by terrorists and remarked that he did not “need a lecture in nationalism and sacrifice from someone who wouldn’t know sacrifice if it kicked him.” The 27-year-old Wani, who quit PhD studies in Allied Geology and joined the militant ranks in January this year, was killed at Shatgund village in Handwara area of Kupwara district during the encounter this morning, police said. As soon as news of Wani’s death spread, people took to streets in protest and at some places they resorted to stone pelting on the security forces. With inputs from PTI