How Poonch residents took on godi media for defaming a Muslim cleric killed in shelling by Pakistan

In Baila village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, almost everyone remembers Qari Mohammad Iqbal for two things – for being a Hafiz-e-Quran, someone who has memorised the entire Quran, and his soft-spoken, calm demeanour.

“He was a very patient person. Even if someone was harsh or rude to him, he would talk politely,” said Chirag Din, a relative from Baila. “He would never argue or fight with anyone.”

The head of the Jamia Zia-Ul-Uloom seminary in Poonch city where Iqbal worked for over two decades agreed. “He would never talk back even if I reprimanded him,” said Maulana Sayeed Ahmed Habib. “For him, everything revolved around his duty as a teacher.”

The 47-year-old, who spent his life memorising the Quran or helping others learn it by heart, died doing his duty as a teacher. In the early hours of May 7, Iqbal was at the seminary when he was hit by splinters of a shell that was fired on Poonch city by the Pakistan army.

But the denigration that followed his death shocked all those who knew him. In the coverage following the four-day conflict between India and Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack, several news channels in Delhi and the National Capital Region labelled Iqbal a...

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