Kashmiri activist
Shakeel Ahmad Bhat is a Kashmiri activist and former militant who has become a minor internet celebrity. In 2007, close-up images of him participating in protests in Srinagar were published in various international media outlets and became the basis of an internet meme, with several bloggers nicknaming him "Islamic Rage Boy". He has been written about in newspapers including the "Times of India", "Middle East Times", France 24, and "The Sunday Mail".
Biography.
Bhat was born into a Sufi Muslim family in Jammu and Kashmir, India, sometime in the late 1970s. His father was associated with Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front. In 1986 during a police raid on his home, his sister Sharifa was thrown down a flight of stairs, following which she became bed-ridden. She died in 1992 at the age of 18. Bhat dropped out of school as a teenager, and in 1991, at the age of 13, he joined a Kashmiri militant group called Al-Umar-Mujahideen, which he remained part of until his arrest in 1994. He was arrested and spent three years in prison, during which he was tortured and subjected to electric shocks. A nail was driven through his jaw. He remained under police surveillance after his release. An injury to his right arm as a result of the torture had left him unable to lift anything, and he has relied on his brothers to support him since then, saying he feels as if he is 110 years old. He lives in Srinagar, where he began participating in demonstrations in 1997. Due to his angry look, he was often photographed by journalists. He took part in protests against the Indian Army, Israel, Pope Benedict XVI, Salman Rushdie, and the cartoons caricaturing Muhammad. 
Speaking to The Guardian about his photograph becoming viral on the internet, he said:
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I am not happy with people joking about me or making me into a cartoon, but I have more important things to think about. My protests are for those Muslims who cannot go out onto the streets to cry out against injustice. This is my duty and I believe Allah has decided this for me.
According to Free Press Kashmir, by 2021 he had "intermittently spent 24 years and 4 months" in different prisons across India and had 276 FIRs against him. He married in 2020.
In popular culture.
He was featured in numerous blogs and articles by Christopher Hitchens, Kathleen Parker, Michelle Malkin, and others. On various blogs, he was photoshopped as Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler or as an opera singer. His picture has also been printed on T-shirts, posters, mouse pads, and beer mugs.
References.
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