wani kashmir pai kashmir encounter militancy barkha dutt twitter
wani kashmir pai kashmir encounter militancy barkha dutt twitterIANS

The killing of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, the 22-year-old commander of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen, in Jammu & Kashmir's Anantnag district on Friday afternoon has had an unexpected fallout. A television journalist and a former chief financial officer (CFO) of Infosys are at loggerheads on Twitter, with both saying "shame on you".

In her report on the killing of Wani, Barkha Dutt of NDTV wrote about the background of Wani, which apparently prompted a response from Mohandas Pai, former CFO at Infosys and an active participant on various topics on television debates.

Reporting on the incident along with her colleague, Dutt wrote, "Burhan Wani was among the most wanted militants in Jammu and Kashmir though he may personally have never fired a single shot, the police said.

"Born to a well-off family in Tral in the southern part of Kashmir, Burhan Wani represented the disturbing profile of young, educated local boys in the Kashmir Valley, many of them school toppers, taking up arms.

None of them crossed over to Pakistan for training in terror camps unlike militants in the past. But where they were operationally weak, they were physically strong, commanding a near cult following among radicalised young Kashmiris." 

Perhaps the tone of the coverage prompted Mohandas Pai to take on Dutt on Twitter.

This evoked a sharp response from Dutt.

Pai hit back with another tweet.

Meanwhile, the death toll in protests over Wani's killing has gone up to five, at the time of publishing this report.

Wani carried a reward of Rs. 10 lakh if anybody gave information about his whereabouts leading to his arrest. 

The Narendra Modi government described Wani's killing as a "path-breaking achievement".

"We have one of the best forces in the world and we ought to compliment them for this breakthrough, which is going to be a major achievement for them and a path breaking achievement in the strategy against terror in general and more so, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in particular," Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Dr. Jitendra Singh told ANI in Jammu.

Wani had released a video last month warning of attacks if separate enclaves were established for defence personnel and Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir. He was also seen in videos shared on Facebook and WhatsApp that exhorted young Kashmiri men to take up arms, the agency said.