https://www.thenewsminute.com/artic...eath-show-attempts-silence-women-voice-161618
In a video posted more than a year ago on YouTube, a young woman, not yet 20, is giving a Malayalam tutorial on wearing a hijab. She removes the shawl she is wearing, asking to be excused for it, while she demonstrates the tying up of hair and the pinning of the hijab on top of it. It seems there was criticism on some previous posts of hers when she appeared without a hijab. The young woman is apologetic as she explains it away as a moment of excitement on straightening her hair, and adds immediately that she is coming back to her old ways, for “what you like is what I like”.
Her name was Rifa Mehnu, and she was a star on social media, with lakhs of followers on Instagram. News of her unexpected death on Tuesday morning brought varied reactions from social media users. She was too young, 20, married and with a kid, living in Dubai. Mehnu (Mehnaz), her husband, reportedly found her dead when he came back home in the early hours of Tuesday, March 1, some time past midnight. Only hours earlier, she had spoken to her family back home in Balussery, a town in rural Kozhikode. She spoke to her toddler son over a video call, a report in Mathrubhumi said.
Both Mehnu and Rifa appeared regularly on Instagram, even on a music album cover. In her last video on Instagram, the couple is seen visiting a restaurant in Dubai and tasting their Kozhikode food. That was posted Monday, February 28, hardly a day before she died.
Oddities began to emerge a little after Rifa’s death, when Mehnu reportedly posted a video about it as an Instagram story and the police got him to remove it. Mehnu found her body in the wee hours of Tuesday and hinted that it was a case of suicide. But Rifa’s family back home is suspicious of the circumstances of her death and reportedly wants further investigation. The Balussery police were not available for comments when TNM tried to reach them.
Reports also suggest that Rifa had been working in Dubai, and Mehnu, whose visa was about to expire, insisted she go back to Kerala with him.
It is, however, not the suspicious circumstances or the unexpected death that seem to have triggered angry comments across social media. Random users are apparently furious about the kind of popularity Rifa enjoyed on Instagram. They have been posting derogatory comments on the “extent certain women went to”, to become stars on social media.
Shimna Azeez, doctor and writer, posted several screenshots of these comments. One of the comments in a screenshot said that Rifa’s death was a lesson to all Muslim women who “showed off on Instagram”. Another said that a few girls in his town were “queens” of Instagram and in the end they had to suffer, bringing “shame” to the entire town. A third comment said that the lives of Muslim girls who forget Allah will end in tears and suicide….
