Tapsee Pannu posts a grossly insensitive tweet about the recently murdered Khushi Parihar

Recently, the brutal murder of an aspiring model, Khushi Parihar, by her boyfriend, Ashraf Sheikh had shocked the conscience of the society. It was a particularly disturbing and heart-wrenching case given the circumstances, the proximity of the accused and the sheer ruthlessness with which she was murdered. As per the photographs on social media, the victim appeared to be in a happy relationship with her boyfriend and had even referred to herself as “Zara Sheikh”. The victim’s body was found with her head and face crushed, lying along the Pandhurna-Nagpur highway. During interrogation, the accused revealed that he had a scuffle with the victim over her friendship with other men, leading to the brutal murder.

Now, in a shocking development, Bollywood actor, Taapsee Pannu, has posted a rather insensitive tweet about the murder case. She said, “Or maybe let’s just say they were madly in love with each other n this ‘act’ was to validate his TRUE love for her,” while sharing a news link reporting the murder case. This wasn’t just the kind of tweet one should post about a highly sensitive issue. At a time, when the conscience of the society stands shaken by the heart-wrenching incident, it didn’t really make any sense to post such an inappropriate and insensitive tweet. One should at least have the necessary courtesy about respecting the departed soul. Insulting the victim and making fun of her wasn’t really something that could have gone down well. She naturally faced a backlash over this tweet.

After she came under heavy criticism for posting an insensitive tweet about the issue, she tried to defend herself by claiming that her tweet was sarcastic and she didn’t really mean it. In another tweet, she said, “Statutory warning: people with no sense of sarcasm kindly ignore me n my tweet. Thank you, it was nice not knowing you.”

However, it is clear that the murder of a 19-year old isn’t really the appropriate time to be sarcastic. Due respect must be paid to the departed soul and she shouldn’t be made a source of inappropriate and insensitive sarcasm. Twitter users also pointed this out. One of them tweeted, “Just imagine , if this was tweeted by @vivekoberoi. By this time he would have been forced to seek an Apology from whole women community of this universe ! Because he can’t use sarcasm, that’s reserved for some elite intellectual!”

It was quite hypocritical of Taapsee to even think of posting such a tweet. On one hand, she preaches about Feminism on screen, courtesy her film Pink, while on the other hand, she posts such an insensitive tweet about the brutal murder of a young girl. Even if it was sarcasm, it was really in a bad taste considering the gravity of the situation and she should have been more sensible instead of criticising other Twitter users who hit out at her for her tweet. 

TFI founder Atul Mishra slammed Taapsee Pannu for her utterly distasteful tweet calling her cold, insensitive and dumb and rightly so. After a short Twitter spat, Taapsee, finding completely isolated and her back against the wall, deleted one of her tweets and exited the scene.

However, in a case like this one, it isn’t even about who is entitled to use sarcasm. Brutal crimes like this warrant sympathy and not sharp digs or sarcastic comments. Taapsee Pannu has rightly come under fire for being plainly insensitive about this issue. It’s time she realised the gravity of the issue and makes amends by apologising for the inappropriate tweet.