On Friday morning, Vivek Agnihotri tweeted saying Delhi's CAA protest area Shaheen Bagh has turned into an Islamist conversion centre and a hideout for criminals, where all kinds of illegal activities are being done.
Sharing a news article, which reads that a kidnapped woman has been rescued from Shaheen Bagh where she was taken for religious conversion, filmmaker Agnihotri tweeted: "#ShaheenBagh has turned into an Islamist conversion centre and a hideout for all kinds of criminals like pickpockets, mobile thieves, drug-peddlers. All kinds of illegal activities are flourishing there. I wonder why Delhi citizens are tolerating this?"
Reacting to his tweet, filmmaker Mehta accused Agnihotri of hate-mongering and advised that he should get converted into Islam and see what the religion actually stands for.
Mehta tweeted: "Unfortunately twitter has become a haven for hate-mongering cowards like you. I sincerely hope you get converted to Islam and you get to understand what the religion really stands for. In fact I wish you'd first understand Hinduism so that you do not continue tarnishing it."
Soon after his tweet, Hansal Mehta started facing flak from Twitterati.
Tagging the Home Ministry, a user tweeted: "Dear @HMOIndia @AmitShah this guy openly saying hindu should convert to islam. Please look into the matter."
Another user wrote: "Good Afternoon sir. Can you please explain what exactly has @vivekagnihotri said that prompted the above tweet from you. A Pluralistic Society demands degree of reciprocity of trust respect & mutuality of Tolerance. Kidnapping for forced conversions is definitely not that".
Another commented: "It's atrocious to ask someone to convert into an another religion. Rather it's way better to understand the religion in which one belong to. Hope by understand the own religion will help a lot."
And then the trolls took over. A few of the comments read: "Sir I want to learn French. France settle hona padega kya?"
"We don't have to consume poison to know that it kills us you idiot"
"You don't have to get rabies to know how dangerous it is!"
Reacting to the trolls, the filmmaker tweeted that he feels like deleting his previous tweet because of the amount of hatred it is generating.
"I'm tempted to delete my tweet to Vivek Agnihotri because of the hate it is generating. I was reacting to his allegation of #ShaheenBag as a centre for islamic conversion. To deflect from injustice using falsehoods deserves contempt. And that is what the tweet was meant to be."
Hansal Mehta also posted a couple of tweets in response to his critics and trolls.
"Amazing amount of hate and trolling by some of twitter hate mongers to a recent tweet. Every word of venom, of hatred you spew i will only say this - i love you. And I'm not espousing conversion. We are a secular nation. I respect our constitution. Just asking you to do the same."
"The RW troll / hatred has a predictable pattern. People will take a sentence out of an entire para, twist it out of context, create a narrative of hatred and show themselves as victims. Their dangerous ignorance has created this terrible atmosphere of hate and prejudice," he wrote.
( With inputs from IANS )