Remember Shihab Chottur, the 32-year-old Kerala vlogger who walked on foot from Malappuram and reached Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform Haj in 370 days?
On Tuesday, he had to delete a post on Facebook in which he was expressing his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Thanks | Modi sir| I am proud to be an Indian Musalman,” (sic) he said in his post, with a picture of himself flanked by his two children dressed as Ram and Sita.
But, an hour after posting it, he deleted the 11-word post from his page as he faced severe backlash from a large section of his more than 7.71 lakh followers. He later posted a long explanation why he thanked the prime minister and issued an apology for posting without a reference.
“The other day, the prime minister had liked my post of an event held… It went viral when many national celebrities shared it. I was surprised that the PM of the country liked the post of a common man like me. So a little while ago, I posted it to thank him. It has nothing to do with the Ayodhya issue. Moreover, I will never surrender to fascism. However, social media reacts in such a way that we don’t even imagine. Many people react without knowing this truth. Leave it to Allah. As someone who loves the beloved Prophet, I do not support fascism. I am sorry for the misleading post and I apologize to everyone who loves me,” he said in his new post.
On his way to Mecca on foot, Shihab covered 8,640 km through Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He hails from Valanchery in Malappuram district, started his trek to perform Haj on June 2, 2022, and reached Mecca in June 2023.
In his holy trail, Shihab walked through several Indian states before reaching the Wagah border to enter Pakistan. There, he was stopped by immigration authorities as he did not have a visa and had to wait for months to get a transit visa. Eventually, in February 2023, he managed to get a transit visa and entered Pakistan to resume the journey and reached his destination four months later.
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