On Wednesday, after an encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists in in the Beighpora area of Kashmir's Awantipora district, officials announced that two terrorists had been killed. Of these one was identified as Hizbul Commander Riyaz Naikoo.
He is wanted for his involvement in the deaths of several officials and had been considerred one of the top leaders of the Hizbul Mujahideen, aking over after Burhan Wani's death. Reportedly, he had been on the run for over eight years.
Now, Riyaz Naikoo had, before joining the terrorist ranks been a maths teacher in a local school. In 2010, he was one of the people arrested for indulging in violence, in the wake of a civilian's death during clashes with security forces, and was released in 2012.
Most media reports had mentioned this fact, and some appeared to have taken it a step further, touching upon his journey in a manner of speaking. This has however outraged netizens, who accused media organisations of "humanising" a terrorist and "creating a bias".
"A terrorist is a terrorist whether he was a math teacher, mbbs, tailor, social activist, school boy etc," wrote one Twitter user.
Another brought up Huffington Post's 2018 article where they had traced Naikoo's journey from "being a math teacher to Hizbul Mujahideen's chief".
"Humanising a terrorist," the user wrote sharing screenshots of the article.
Take a look at some of the Twitter posts:
