Kashmiri journalist Quratulain Rehbar has been targeted by online abuse and doxxing after her report on West Bengal’s voter list revision was published in Nikkei Asia.
Rehbar, an independent journalist who has contributed to global platforms like Al Jazeera, faced a wave of hateful comments on social media, with several users targeting her identity as a Kashmiri Muslim woman.
The backlash followed her report on the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, a process that has already sparked political controversy.
Hate Comments Target Identity, Allegations of “Fake News”
Several social media users posted abusive and communal remarks while questioning her credibility. One user wrote, “Japanese media is about to experience news jihad… Muslims in the media will feed fake news and weaken national security.”
Another user used derogatory slurs, while others dismissed her report as “fake news” and claimed the voter list revision was a routine exercise to remove “dead, duplicate and migrated voters.”
A post from another account read, “Meet so-called ‘independent journalist’… pushing a misleading narrative: ‘India deleted 10% voters before polls.’ Reality: this is voter list revision, not suppression.”
This story was originally published in theobserverpost.com. Read the full story here.
