— Cricketer’s Wikipedia page edited to link him to Khalistan Movement
DUBAI: With Arshdeep Singh falling victim to vicious online trolling after India’s defeat to Pakistan in their Sunday Super 4 stage opener of the Asia Cup, Mohammad Hafeez rushed to the 23-year-old’s defence.
The “professor” urged cricket fans in India to stop humiliating the pacer, 23, for his dropped catch of middle-order batsman Asif Ali during the 18th over of the nerve-shredding chase.
Taking to Twitter, he wrote: “My request to all Indian team fans. In sports, we make mistakes as we [are] human. Please don’t humiliate anyone on these mistakes. @arshdeepsinghh”.
My request to all Indian team fans. In sports we make mistakes as we r human. Please don’t humiliate anyone on these mistakes. @arshdeepsinghh
— Mohammad Hafeez (@MHafeez22) September 4, 2022
Responding to the tweet, one Kamran Malik from Pakistan said: “It needs a broader mindset to understand this, which clearly is missing here. Feeling sorry for Arshdeep.”
It needs a broader mindset to understand this, which clearly is missing here. Feeling sorry for Arshdeep.
— Kamran Malik 🇵🇰 (@ikamranPK) September 4, 2022
The pacer also secured support from India legend Harbhajan Singh, who slammed trolls for their “cheap” remarks.
The former cricketer tweeted: “Stop criticising young @arshdeepsinghh No one drops the catch purposely.
We are proud of our boys. Pakistan played better. Shame on such people who are putting our own guys down by saying cheap things on this platform bout Arsh(deep) and the team. Arsh is gold.”
Stop criticising young @arshdeepsinghh No one drop the catch purposely..we are proud of our 🇮🇳 boys .. Pakistan played better.. shame on such people who r putting our own guys down by saying cheap things on this platform bout arsh and team.. Arsh is GOLD🇮🇳
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) September 4, 2022
For their next Super 4 stage fixture, India will face Sri Lanka on Tuesday in Dubai. Meanwhile, Pakistan will play Afghanistan on Wednesday in Sharjah.
KHALISTAN LINK
After India lost to Pakistan on Sunday night, Singh’s Wikipedia page was vandalised to claim he was linked to the Khalistan Movement. The movement is an aggressive campaign seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called Khalistan.
According to the edit history of the page, an unregistered user replaced the words “India” with “Khalistan” at several locations on the profile at 12:08 am Pakistan Standard Time (PST), Hindustan Times reported.
This user also edited his name to first read “Major Arshdeep Singh Langra” and, a minute later, to “Major Arshdeep Singh Bajwa”. They also made some random changes to Singh’s game statistics.
The user also replaced the word India with Khalistan in links cited to support claims on the page, leading to a purported Times of Khalistan newspaper that does not exist.
