Recently, yet another Hinduphobic fake narrative spear-headed by the ‘fact-checkers’ went viral on social media. Alt News’ Md Zubair had posted a muted video of a Muslim man being assaulted and had claimed that he is being attacked by people who forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Many leftist websites had lapped up the fake news.
Here’s what happened:
Soon after Alt News co-founder Muhammed Zubair uploaded a muted video of an old Muslim man from Ghaziabad being thrashed and claimed that he was made to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ by the perpetrators, articles, especially from the left-leaning media houses, started to trickle down.
Along with The Wire which seems to be quite miffed after being named in the FIR by the UP government for peddling fake news, TheQuint too published a detailed ‘6-minute read’ article defaming the Hindu chant ‘Jai Shri Ram.’
Both the news pieces had emphasized on ‘victim made to chant Jai Shri Ram’ in their sub-headline with The Wire also claiming that he was forced to chant ‘Vande Mataram too.
TheQuint’s cartoon
TheQuint in an attempt to further its Hinduphobic propaganda published a cartoon featuring two completely unrelated incidents.
India on Sunday signed off a joint statement by G-7 and guest countries on “open societies” that reaffirm and encourage the values of freedom of expression, both online and offline and helps people live free from fear and oppression.
Liking this to the unfortunate incident, the cartoon showcased a man forcefully cutting a Muslim man’s beard and making him chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ while reading “…helps people live free from fear and oppression” phrase from the statement.
TheQuint takes down the cartoon
However, soon after the names of the accused were revealed and an FIR was slapped against Twitter, Alt News co-founder Muhammed Zubair, The Wire and few other leftist personalities for spreading blatant fake news, TheQuint has taken down its cartoon.
Ghaziabad Police had informed that they had examined in the original content and there was no mention of ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Moreover, the accused included Muslim men too and it was a petty crime where an old man was thrashed for giving amulets. There was no communal angle in the crime.
“The Quint has withdrawn its Kaafi Real cartoon on the recent incident in Loni, where a 72-year-old Muslim man was attacked on 5 June, after the police has contested that he was forced to chant. We will continue to bring you the developments on the case. Thanks,” said TheQuint in a Tweet.
https://twitter.com/TheQuint/status/1405025331426201602?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwMeanwhile, in a first-of-its-kind, the Uttar Pradesh Government has initiated action against social media giant Twitter India for failing to take down tweets that spread misinformation about the Ghaziabad crime.