Shakeel Ahmad Bhat | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1979 |
| Occupation | Kashmiriactivist |
| Known for | Muslim Rage Boyinternet meme |
Shakeel Ahmad Bhat is aKashmiri activist andformer militant[1] who has become a minorinternet celebrity.[2] In 2007, close-up images of him participating in protests inSrinagar were published in various international media outlets and became the basis of aninternet meme,[3] with several bloggers nicknaming himIslamic Rage Boy.[4] He has been written about in newspapers including theTimes of India,[5]Middle East Times,[6]France 24,[7] andThe Sunday Mail.[8][9][2][1]
Bhat was born into aSufi Muslim family inJammu and Kashmir,India, sometime in the late 1970s.[10] His father was associated withJammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front.[11] In interviews given to different news outlets, Bhat has alleged that his sister Sharifa died as a result of injuries sustained from violence by police during a police raid on his home. The year of the police raid and her death, her age, and the exact cause of her death are uncertain, with various versions in media.[a] Bhat dropped out of school as a teenager, and in 1991, at the age of 13, he joined a pro-Pakistan militant group calledAl-Umar-Mujahideen,[8][11] which he remained part of until his arrest in 1994.[13][1] He was arrested and spent three years in prison, during which he was tortured and subjected to electric shocks. A nail was driven through his jaw.[14][15] He remained under police surveillance after his release. An injury to his right arm as a result of the torture had left him unable to lift anything, and he has relied on his brothers to support him since then, saying he feels as if he is 110 years old.[16] He lives inSrinagar, where he began participating in demonstrations in 1997. Due to his angry look, he was often photographed by journalists. He took part in protests against theIndian Army, Israel,Pope Benedict XVI,Salman Rushdie, and thecartoons caricaturing Muhammad.[17]
Speaking toThe Guardian about his photograph becoming viral on the internet, he said:
I am not happy with people joking about me or making me into a cartoon, but I have more important things to think about. My protests are for those Muslims who cannot go out onto the streets to cry out against injustice. This is my duty and I believe Allah has decided this for me.[1]
According toFree Press Kashmir, by 2021 he had "intermittently spent 24 years and 4 months" in different prisons across India and had 276FIRs against him.[10] He married in 2020.[10]
He was featured in numerous blogs and articles byChristopher Hitchens,[18]Kathleen Parker,[19]Michelle Malkin,[20] and others. On various blogs, he wasphotoshopped as Aerosmith singerSteven Tyler or as an opera singer.[21][22] His picture has also been printed on T-shirts, posters, mouse pads, and beer mugs.[5]
Shakeel aged all of thirteen, decided to join other young men and go to Pakistan for military training. He was so small that he had to be carried on an older boy's shoulders when he went over the mountains. In Muzaffarabad on the Pakistani side of the border, he was taken to a snow-covered training camp run by the ISI in conjunction with the militant group Al-Umar mujahideen. Armed with an AK-47, he returned to a safe house in Srinagar, hoping — in what now seems a very impractical way — to drive out the Indian troops. 'I thought Kashmir should have the right to self-determination, he said. Shakeel not an effective militant. When I asked him how many people he had killed, he looked embarrassed. 'I gave scares, but I never killed anyone. I couldn't.
When separatists started to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, the security forces arrived. Police who were searching for militants raided Shakeel's home, and threw his beloved eighteen-year-old sister Shareefa out of an upstairs window. She broke her spine, and died from her injuries four years later.