On Wednesday evening, actor Randeep Hooda said he should have been careful with his tweet related to Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur.
The Lady Sri Ram College student, daughter of army martyr Captain Mandeep Singh, had launched a viral social media campaign against Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the BJP's student wing.
She got caught up in a Twitter war with ex-cricketer Virendra Sehwag and Hooda, who called her a "political pawn".
When asked to clarify his tweet, Hooda said, "It wasn't gender specific. I was and I am against politicisation of personal opinions. There was an axe to grind and considering the environment in the country vis-a-vis women, in hindsight, I do believe I should have been more careful."
Hooda said being an actor, he is often trolled on social media but for Kaur, it must have been traumatic.
"As an actor I have faced this (trolling) before and will have it in future but as a young person to face this would be very traumatic and she shouldn't have gone through this."
The actor said he was not aware of any threats which were given to Kaur when he tweeted, which were taken out of context and eventually people started labeling him as a bully.
"I don't know what the authorities are doing. But by that time the narrative was set. I was labeled, put in a box. I have been labeled before," he said, adding, "You cannot threaten a woman with violence on social media. That has to be addressed. Social media portal heads in India should look into it very seriously because it is becoming a bigger issue."
The "Highway" star said when he re-tweeted a tweet by Sehwag, it was purely because he found it funny and didn't even know "who the girl was" so he laughed it off.
To this, Gurmehar Kaur responded on Twitter.
She said:
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