Gautam Gambhir, Omar Abdullah cross swords over Manan Wani killing

Ace opener Gautam Gambhir is known for his forthright viewpoints on various topics – be it cricket or the radicalisation of youth and this time he has found himself in the middle of a heated conversation with a politician over the killing of Manan Wani, a scholar-turned-militant by Jammu and Kashmir Police at Handwara in the state’s Kupwara district on October 11.

Gambhir said in a tweet on October 12 night saying in Manan Wani’s death, a radicalised talent was lost. He slammed all political parties – including the two national parties Congress and BJP and the two state-based parties – National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party – saying “they left a young man drift from books to embrace bullet”.

Gautam hits back to Abdullah after latter taunts him

To this, though the other three parties did not say anything, NC leader Omar Abdullah, who is also the state’s current leader of Opposition, hit back at the 36-year-old cricketer. On a sarcastic note, the former chief minister of J&K said Gambhir would not be able to locate Manan’s home district, let alone his village, and yet presumed to know what drove the Kashmiri youth to choose the extremist way. He also taunted the cricketer saying the latter knew less about Kashmir.

Gambhir hit back immediately, and clinging on to the point of “map”, accused Abdullah and his ilk of trying to change the map of India by talking Kashmir to Pakistan, the neighbouring country against which he has been found to be taking a hard stand in the past on the question of terrorism.

Abdullah was in no mood to give up. Defending his stand, the 48-year-old leader said in another tweet: “It’s been less than a week since I had two of my colleagues killed by terrorists, my party has lost 1000s of workers, both senior & junior since 1988. I don’t need a lecture in nationalism & sacrifice from someone who wouldn’t know sacrifice if it kicked him.”

Abdullah also advised Gambhir to come back a better-informed person and accused him of playing to the galleries. The cricketer hit back again, saying Abdullah and politicians like him hate to see “mirror thrusted” on them and said there was a need for real characters and not someone like Abdullah who he accused of giving “lip service”.

For more news and developments, stay tuned on CricTracker.com.