NEW DELHI: A tweet by an official handle of the defence ministry in Jammu and Kashmir about the Army hosting an iftar in Doda district was deleted after it came under attack from some anti-minority forces on social media, raising concerns about the abject capitulation in military and veteran circles. “Keeping alive the traditions of secularism, an iftar was organised by the Indian Army at Arnora in Doda district,” the MoD’s Jammu public relations officer (PRO), a Lt-Colonel, had said in the tweet on April 21. The tweet was accompanied by photographs showing Army officers, including a major general, interacting with Muslims of the area at the iftar during Ramzan.
The tweet was deleted in wake of the large-scale trolling by some right-wing handles. Both the MoD, under which the Jammu PRO works in the directorate of public relations, and the Army declined to say anything on why the tweet was deleted.
A senior officer, however, said, “Army formations have been regularly holding iftars in different parts of the insurgency-hit J&K for decades now as part of the policy to win the hearts and minds of the common people there. It was wrong to delete the tweet. The Army is proud of its secular and apolitical ethos.”
If one scrolls down the MoD/Army Twitter handles in J&K, including that of the Udhampur-based Northern Command responsible for the borders with Pakistan and China as well as counter-insurgency operations, there are several such tweets about iftars being held in previous years. “The Indian Army has been at the forefront of interfaith harmony. We, as officers, take pride in the fact that we have NO religion, we just adopt the religion of the troops we command,” tweeted Major General Yash Mor (retd).
