By IANS,
New Delhi : Comments for and against Jarnail Singh’s impulsive act are flooding the cyberworld after the reporter hurled his shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram at a press conference Tuesday.
Some say it was wrong and uncalled for, others are supporting journalist Jarnail Singh who chucked his shoe from close range at Chidambaram to vent his anger over the government and Congress party’s stand on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The writer of blog Sands of Change wrote: “Now there is pressure on (the) Congress to withdraw the Lok Sabha ticket to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar. If they do, a journalist’s shoe would seem to be more powerful than the proverbial pen.”
Barely 30 minutes after the episode, the video of the shoe-throwing episode was uploaded on the popular video sharing website YouTube. It received over 5,000 hits.
Read a comment: “We are proud of you (Jarnail Singh). Sikhs need justice. I support your act.”
“It’s amazing how they so smoothly let Congress leader Jagdish Tytler go, saying that they could not find any evidence against him in inciting mob violence,” read another comment.
“It was a state sponsored genocide, and after waiting for 25 years for justice if this is what the result is then what else can you expect?
“Frustration can agitate even the most sober person. This was a good slap on the government’s face.”
Aman Verma, a blogger, wrote: “All governments are the same. The facade of being just and secular is such a farce. Jarnail Singh is just one of the thousands of people from the Sikh community who have been wronged so many years back and are still awaiting justice”.
However, there are a number of other voices who felt that Singh’s act was uncalled for.
“There are better ways to protest than hurling a shoe. And if you had to throw a shoe, you should have done that on Tytler,” wrote Amrita Sharma, a blogger.
Ashmita Jain, wrote on her blog: “I think this act was not called for. It was disrespectful.”