No One Knew You Before Aamir's Dangal: Babita Phogat Slammed For 'Communalising' Nizamuddin Meet

Commonwealth Games gold medallist wrestler Babita Phogat has been heavily criticised for allegedly communalising the Nizamuddin incident, amid spike in the coronavirus cases in the country.

On late Thursday night, Phogat posted a cryptic tweet, referring to the incident that took place in Indore when a mob of angry locals attacked Healthcare workers and civic officials after the latter tried to screen residents of a locality for COVID-19.

"At your place it might have spread through bats, in India it spread through illiterate pigs," Phogat tweeted alongside a hashtag #NizamuddinIdiots to her post.

A section of Twitterati felt Phogat's tweet was an attempt to "target a community and to communalise" the Markaz Nizamuddin incident, where over 2,000 people had gathered for a religious event.

One Twitter user took a dig at Phogat, writing, "Record amount of bigotry, hate, and fake news in just 17 words. You should get Gold Medal for (t)his achievement.." (sic)

Some even pointed out that Babita's claim to fame was Aamir Khan's Dangal, and yet she was trying to bad-mouth the actor's community, tweeting, "Aamir Khan brought insignificant hate mongering fools like Babita Phogat to the limelight and today she shamelessly abuses his community!"

Aamir's 2016 release Dangal was an all-time blockbuster that narrated the story of the Phogat sisters Babita and Geeta, who were coached into becoming champions by their ex-wrestler father Mahavir Phogat.

The wrestler, later, tweeted a clarification, saying that her post was aimed at denouncing the acts of those who attacked the police, doctors and nurses across the country.

She tweeted: "What else should I call those who attack doctors, police and nurses who have been our shields in this crisis. I have no motive to write against any particular religion or caste. In this tweet, I have only written against those who attacked corona fighters, and will keep writing even in the future."

India has witnessed a sharp spike in Covid-19 cases in recent days with several cases being linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin. As of Thursday, 389 people linked to the religious conference were found positive for the novel coronavirus. The event was attended by several foreigners who later dispersed across India.