New Delhi: Veteran actor and BJP Member of Parliament (MP) from Gujarat Paresh Rawal raked a controversy after commenting on social media that writer Arundhati Roy should be tied to an army jeep.
He made the comment in a reference to the incident last month of the army in Kashmir strapping a protester to its vehicle as a “human shield” against stone-throwers.
“Instead of tying stone pelter on the army jeep tie up Arundhati Roy!” tweeted Mr Rawal on Sunday night. In response to a comment, he also said, “We have a wide variety of choices.”
The comments have been retweeted over 3000 times within 14 hours. The tweet has received over 6000 likes so far.
Rawal is a Lok Sabha parliamentarian from Gujarat. He debuted as an MP in 2014.
The human shield footage was among a series of videos that surfaced in Kashmir last month, showing clashes between protesters and security personnel in Kashmir. The army said its soldiers strapped the young man to the front of their jeep as protection from stone-throwers.
Among those who reacted to the actor’s posts was senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. He said: @SirPareshRawal Why not the person who stitched PDP/BJP alliance?
Arundhati Roy, an award-winning writer, is known for her controversial views on Kashmir but it is not yet known what spurred Mr Rawal’s outrageous tweets.
Ms Roy’s second novel, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, will come out next month, almost two decades after her first, “God of Small Things” – for which she won a Booker prize.
