Gurmehar Kaur fake video: DU student questions if it was right to shame girl dancing in car

Fake videos seem to have emerged as a favourite tool every time the debate between nationalism and free speech emerges in the national consciousness. Last year, it was Kanhaiya Kumar, now it’s Gurmehar Kaur who was trolled, again, on Saturday after a video of a young woman drinking, singing and dancing in a car emerged in the social media. The video, however, was fake, reports said. [caption id=“attachment_3316504” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Gurmehar Kaur. Image courtesy: Facebook[/caption] According to Hindustan Times report, several users on Twitter trolled Gurmehar, a student of Lady Shri Ram College assuming that it was her in the video. Though the video, has since then been removed from YouTube, “the video, like the Ramjas violence, turned into a Left vs Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad slugfest”, the report said. Gurmehar turned to Twitter to reject the claims. She also questioned whether it was okay to shame the actual girl in the video. She tweeted;

The girl in the car wasn't me. But whether she was or she wasn't.. was it okay to shame her like that? #swachhthoughts

— Gurmehar Kaur (@mehartweets) March 4, 2017

Gurmehar’s mother Rajvinder also rubbished the video, India Today said.  “In a phone call, Rajvinder was very confident when she denied that the girl shown in the video was her daughter. Instead, she objected to the way a pretty girl was being maligned for no reason. Many of Gurmehar’s friends and relatives have rang in too, to ask Rajvinder to confirm if it was her daughter in the video,” the report said. Gurmehar had been at the receiving end on social media ever since she took to social media express her resentment against the ABVP which had attacked students from Ramjas College on 22 February for organising a lecture featuring JNU student Umar Khalid, and since then she has been at the receiving end of right-wing nationalists and ABVP supporters. According to Hindustan Times, CPI (ML) Politburo member Kavita Krishnan accused the ABVP, of circulating the video to defame Kaur and slander her character. “Look at the comments on Twitter. They are accusing her of being a Naxal. Some woman is simply dancing and singing in the car. What is the problem with that?” she told the newspaper.