Former actress Zaira Wasim has finally reacted to the furore caused by her social media posts on locust attacks.
In a response to a Canadian journalist, Tarek Fatah, Zaira said her words were taken out of context.
Tarek took to his Twitter handle and wrote, “Indian Muslim actress @ZairaWasimmm mocks her own countrymen as being victims of Allah’s wrath. This is how she explains locust swarm (sic).”
In her original tweet, Zaira had mentioned a verse from the Quran about locust swarms. She wrote, “‘So We sent upon them the flood and locusts and lice and frogs and blood: Signs openly self-explained: but they were steeped in arrogance- a people given to sin’ – Qur’an 7:133 (sic).”
“So We sent upon them the flood and locusts and lice and frogs and blood: Signs openly self explained: but they were steeped in arrogance- a people given to sin”
-Qur’an 7:133
— Zaira Wasim (@ZairaWasimmm) May 27, 2020
Post this tweet, Zaira was badly criticised on social media. Her posts started surfacing on the internet with people trolling her from all over. Seeing all this, she decided to temporarily deactivate her Instagram and Twitter accounts. However, she returned a day later.
On Monday, zaira responded to Fatah’s tweet and shared a long note saying that her tweet was taken out of context.
She wrote that she never claimed that the locust attacks in multiple states of the country were a sign of God’s wrath.
“While I too agree making claims like `this is wrath or a curse’ when the world is going through so much is a really insensitive one, I wish to also emphasise that making a claim on our own as big as It’s a wrath or curse of Allah upon any land* is a statement one is making on behalf of Allah, which is actually a religiously irresponsible one and a sin and also a claim I never made, let alone mock anyone,” Zaira added.
“My tweet was completely taken out of context and blown out of proportion and none of the opinions, whether good or bad, define the reality of my intentions, for that is between me and My Rabb, and something which I’m not even going to explain, for I’m only accountable to Allah and not His creation,” she wrote.
Zaira ended her tweet by adding, “P.S I am not an actress anymore (sic).”
https://t.co/3ZsfR3nhUK pic.twitter.com/sz8hlpFLvZ
— Zaira Wasim (@ZairaWasimmm) June 1, 2020
Last year, the former actress created buzz after announcing that she has decided to quit her acting career as she felt that her profession was damaging her relationship with her religion.