Dangal star Zaira Wasim deletes public apology after it goes viral

After her apology went viral, Dangal star Zaira Wasim has deleted the posts that inspired the news channels to come up with hashtags like #DangalvsFanatics (Times Now) and #DangalStarHounded (India Today).

On Saturday, the 16-year-old Wasim met Kashmir’s Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in Srinagar. The Times of India reported that Mufti spoke to Wasim “about her education and interest in creative fields like acting” and that Wasim told the CM about “the rigorous schedule she had to follow while performing her role”. .

Earlier today, Wasim released a statement through her Facebook and Twitter profiles in which she apologised for “my recent actions or by the people I have recently met”.

From her note, it appears that Wasim faced criticism for meeting Mufti, who herself faced potent backlash for how the protests that followed the funeral of Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, were met with force. Since the summer of 2016, Mufti has been trying to appeal to the Kashmiri youth in an effort to mitigate the damage to her reputation that has come from the thousands of reported pellet injuries, many of them suffered by young men and children.

While Wasim has not made this explicitly clear in her apology, it seems certain factions on social media assumed Wasim’s meeting with Mufti was the 16-year-old actor siding with the government and standing against protestors.

Wasim not only apologised in her statement, but also emphatically said that she has no intention of being a role model for anyone.

“The first and foremost thing is that I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri Youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my foot steps or even consider me as a role model. I’m not proud of what I’m doing and I want everyone, especially the Youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history.”

Wasim’s apology went viral within hours of being posted, helped by coverage from television news. Possibly because of the carefully-vague wording of Wasim’s apology, channels like Times Now and India Today initially assumed the teenaged actress had been forced to apologise for having worked in Dangal. The former CM of Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, joined in via Twitter, lending a political tinge to the issue.

While the news channels have been going on “debating” the issue, Wasim (or her social media team) quietly decided to take the apology off her Facebook and Twitter timelines.