Military Veterans Urge President to Take Action on Fake News About ‘Muslim Regiment’
The letter pointed out that the campaign of falsehood emanated from a tweet in 2013 posted by a Twitter account ‘World Hindus United’
NEW DELHI — A group of 120 Indian military veterans have written an open letter to President Ram Nath Kovind urging him to initiate immediate action against people spreading the fake news against armymen who are Muslim.
The fake news being peddled on social media says that Indian Army’s “Muslim Regiment” had refused to fight against Pakistan during the 1965 war, and, hence, it was disbanded.
The letter addressed to the President, who is the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, said: “These ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts are blatantly false, because the Indian Army did not have a Muslim Regiment in 1965 or since. Muslims fighting as part of multi-class regiments proved their absolute commitment to the cause of our nation.”
The letter pointed out that the campaign of falsehood emanated from a tweet in 2013 posted by a Twitter account ‘World Hindus United’. The tweet is again doing the rounds on social media amid a volatile situation on the India-China border in Ladakh.
“The tweet was meant to show that Muslim soldiers had their loyalties to Pakistan rather than India. The ‘Muslim Regiment’ post has been re-tweeted many times thereafter, and its insidious surfacing during the on-going Chinese aggression, is certainly suspect,” the letter says, and notes the valour of Muslims who were at the forefront of battles fought by India.
For example, Brigadier Mohammad Usman who chose to remain in the Indian Army in spite of being approached personally by Jinnah to move to Pakistan. “He fought the Pakistani invasion in Kashmir, was the senior most officer killed in action in July 1948, and was posthumously awarded Mahavir Chakra for his gallantry. He lies buried in the Jamia Millia Islamia campus in Delhi…” the letter notes.
The signatories said that the tweet helped the enemy by striking at the morale of India’s soldiers to degrade their operational capability.
“It needs no emphasis that social unrest adversely affects the morale of soldiers who are far away from their families, doing their duty to defend our borders, at daily risk to life and limb,” said the veterans of the armed forces from all ranks of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
They have requested the President to take following immediate measures:
Investigate the antecedents of individuals who have made ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts.
dentify and charge individuals who have made ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts for anti-national activities.
Issue warning to the social media providers (Facebook and Twitter) who have enabled ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts.
Issue immediate instructions to all state governments that the generation of false and seditious messages in social media should be acted upon with alacrity so as to not jeopardise national security.
The list of signatories:
- Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM
- Lt Gen Ramdas Mohan, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
- Lt Gen RK Nanavatty, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM
- Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
- Lt Gen UK Ganguli
- Lt Gen Raman Dhawan, AVSM,VSM**, ADC
- Lt Gen Ashwini Kumar Bakshi AVSM, SM, VSM
- Lt Gen Oomman P Mathew, PVSM, AVSM, SM
- Lt Gen Kishen Bhatia, PVSM
- Lt Gen KS Rao, PVSM, SC, SM
- Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh, PVSM, AVSM
- Vice Admiral R P Suthan, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
- Vice Admiral Michael Morales, AVSM
- Maj Gen SG Vombatkere, VSM
- Maj Gen PK Joglekar, PVSM
- Maj Gen Arun Srinivasan
- Maj Gen Suresh Krishnan
- Maj Gen Inderjit Kashyap
- Maj Gen Anil Sawhny, AVSM
- Maj Gen SS Grewall, AVSM
- Maj Gen Rajendra Prakash, VSM
- Maj Gen TK Kaul, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
- Maj Gen MPS Kandal
- Maj Gen SS Chohan
- Rear Admiral Stanley Alan O’Leary
- Brig Baqir Shameem
- Brig Sharad Ramchandra Luktuke, SM, VSM
- Brig Mohammad Nasim Khan
- Brig Kakar
- Brig JM Devadoss, SM
- Brig Vijay Raheja
- Brig M Sudandiram, VSM
- Brig Vinod Kumar Adappa, SM
- Brig Prem Hejmadi
- Brig SP Agarwal
- Brig M R Deshpande
- Brig Deepak Grover
- Brig AM Sharma
- Brig Virendra Kumar Bajaj
- Brig Anil Bhat
- Brig SK Jandial
- Brig Ali Adil Mahmood, VSM
- Brig RJS Dhillon, YSM, VSM
- Brig AN Suryanarayanan
- Brig MJ Jacob, SM
- Col Dinesh Kumar
- Col Pavan Nair, VSM
- Col Shashi Thomas
- Col Ashwin Baindur
- Col Ajay Dabholkar
- Col RK Minocha
- Col Rajendra Bhaduri
- Col VK Rajendran
- Col Vinay Kumta
- Col A K Moghe
- Col Ronnie Burjor Mistry
- Col Vivek Bopiah
- Col Ajay Kumar Dewan
- Col Manduvanda Lava Cheeyanna
- Col Sunil Datt
- Col Manmohan Singh
- Col Esmond Jules Sanchis
- Col Sharath Bhat
- Col Raghu Akella, VSM
- Col Rajive Kohli
- Col Vivek Bhatt
- Col Swaran Singh Pathania
- Col CK Roy
- Col VR Menon
- Capt (IN) Subbarao Prabhala,VSM
- Capt (IN) AK Kalia
- Capt (IN) Paul Abraham
- Gp Capt BC Christopher
- Gp Capt Philips Jacob, VM
- Lt Col Vijay N Kharkar
- Lt Col Johnson Thomas
- Lt Col Shubeg Singh Gill
- Lt Col VC Alexander
- Lt Col Riyaz Khan
- Lt Col A K Suri
- Lt Col Niraj Pant
- Lt Col Aditya Parida
- Lt Col Arun Rao, SM
- Lt Col Hasan Muzaffar, SM
- Lt Col TL Sharma
- Lt Col Avinash Karnik
- Lt Col JE Premkumar
- Cdr A Vibhuti
- Cdr S Viswanathan
- Cdr A Abraham
- Cdr MV Cherukoth
- Cdr Ravindra P Varma
- Cdr MM Pareek
- Cdr CR Babu
- Cdr Arvind Poothia
- Cdr Karunesh Kaushik
- Cdr Dipak D Naik
- Cdr John Philipose
- Cdr Tom Joseph
- Wg Cdr A S Joshi (Retd)
- Wg Cdr Rakesh Sant
- Wg Cdr Vinod Nebb, VrC**
- Wg Cdr Mohammad Sufiyan Khan
- Wg Cdr Bertrand Joseph Vaz
- Maj Priyadarshi Chowdhury, SC
- Maj Jasbeer Singh, SM
- Maj Vijay Sharma
- Maj MG Devasahayam
- Maj AA Khan
- Lt Cdr Harbans Singh Dhillon
- Lt Cdr Rajender Singh Bajwa
- Capt JJ Alfred Rajasekaran
- Flt Lt Rajiv Tyagi
- Lt (IN) Sandhya Suri
- Hony Lt (IN) DN Singh, MSM
- Hony Lt (IN) Tilak Raj Sharma
- Sergeant Sunil Rao
- Sergeant Mandetira N Subramani
- Sergeant Joginder Singh
- Sergeant Irshad Shaikh