Mohammed Shami shuts bigots down after criticism over wife’s ‘immodest attire’

The year 2016 has been marred with incidents of moral policing, racial slurring and fanatic trolling, especially on social media. Indian pacer Mohammed Shami was the latest victim of such a display of religious bigotry when trolls on social media attacked him over the ‘immodesty’ of his wife’s attire. Soon after Shami posted a photo on his Facebook page on 23 December, where his wife can be seen wearing a sleeveless gown, religious fanatics started hurling abuse in the comments section, demanding that his wife, being a Muslim, cover herself and wear a hijab.

Shami, who is currently out of the Indian team after undergoing rehabilitation for a knee injury, could not have imagined that the photo would be subjected to such outrage. [caption id=“attachment_3173852” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Mohammad Shami was subjected to a lot of abuse over his wife’s attire. Image courtesy: Twitter/@MohammadKaif[/caption] And though many joined in to troll Shami over the issue, some quickly came to his defence. The most notable of the lot was Mohammad Kaif, who tweeted that the comments were ‘really really Shameful’ and that he will ‘support Mohammed Shami fully’.

This episode, however, is not the first time this has happened as tennis star Sania Mirza has also been at the receiving end of similar religious bigotry. She has often been abused over her sporting attire and in 2005, a fatwa was issued against her demanding that she stop wearing ‘such short clothes’ and that she should ‘cover herself from head to toe’ while on the tennis court. Others also quickly jumped to Shami’s defense:

Meanwhile, Shami has hit back at the Twitter trolls in a cool, nonchalant manner: