Over the past several years, many foreign media organisations have demonstrated blatant Hinduphobia and anti-India slant through content published on their websites. Be it India’s space programme or its complex social dynamics owing to its rich diversity, many foreign media outlets have displayed unqualified condescension and a malicious penchant to run down the country and level false allegations against it.
Such attitude was once again on display during the coverage of violence that swept Haryana’s Muslim-majority region, Nuh, from July 31 after Hindus organised a procession to mark Shravan Somwar, one of the many occasions considered auspicious by Hindus.
Al Jazeera, a state media house owned by the government of Qatar, which is an Islamic monarchy but likes to sermonise non-Muslim countries on secularism, recently published a report trying to paint Muslims as the victims of violence that erupted in Nuh and conspired by their rabid co-religionists.
“Imam killed after Hindu mob attacks mosques in India’s Gurugram,” read the headline of a report published by Al Jazeera, belying the tragedy that befell Hindu devotees of Jalabhishek Yatra in Mewat’s Nuh region.
The article not only sought to whitewash the violence that Islamists unleashed against Hindu devotees, which triggered the ensuing riots but also passed the buck of the attendant unrest to the victims, i.e. Hindus, by directing attention towards the death of an Imam.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC as it is widely known, too attempted to malign India and brand Muslims as victims of the violence kindled by Islamists.
The BBC published an article titled, “Nuh: Mosque set on fire, cleric killed in religious clashes in India’s Haryana.” The BBC published an article titled, “Nuh: Mosque set on fire, cleric killed in religious clashes in India’s Haryana.” The BBC published an article titled, “Nuh: Mosque set on fire, cleric killed in religious clashes in India’s Haryana.” The headline by BBC perfectly dovetailed with its longstanding attempts to shield Islamists and brand their victims as aggressors.
The BBC piece hinted that Muslims have been at the receiving end of the violence underway in Haryana’s Nuh, and even their places of worship and cleric working there are not safe from the religious tensions gripping the country.
Of course, that’s as accurate as BBC’s assessment of tax liability in India. In a bid to portray Muslims as the victim of the violence, the BBC article demonised Hindu devotees stating that a mosque was set on fire during clashes that broke out after a ‘procession by Hindu nationalist groups’.
Of late, BBC and the leftist media have often leaned on describing the victims of religious clashes as members of ‘right-wing organisations’ or ‘nationalist groups’ to discredit their account of incidents and provide a cover for the violent tendencies of Islamists. The onus of the violence and riots in Nuh was deviously laid at the feet of Hindus even when they were the victims of the violence and faced an overwhelming force of Islamists baying for their blood and attacking them with sticks, stones, and bullets.
Contrary to what propaganda media outlets like BBC and Al Jazeera would have us believe, not Muslims but Hindus were the victims of the brutality witnessed in Nuh. The earliest FIR in the case says that a mob of 400-500 Islamists gheraoed and attacked 30-40 yatris bound for the Nalhar Shiva temple in Nuh. This nugget of information would obviously be left out by the likes of BBC and Al Jazeera since it does not fit in their narrative of depicting Muslims as the victim of perceived “religious persecution” underway in India.
Moreover, not just Imam but 5 other people lost their lives in the violence that engulfed the region, all of whom were victims of Islamists’ violence. That makes a staggering 83.33 per cent of the total dead, puncturing foreign media outlet’s attempt to brand Muslims as innocent victims of the clashes.
Among those killed by the Islamist mob include two home-guards, Neeraj and Gurusewak. Gursewak sustained an injury on his liver which led to his death, as per the post-mortem report. The cause of his injury was blunt force impact as the officials were attempting to control the Islamist mob which went on a killing spree following an attack on a peaceful Hindu Shobha Yatra.
Another Homeguard Neeraj Khan lost his life while trying to do his duty. His autopsy report mentions blunt force impact as the cause of death. Several large-scale injuries were also found on his body indicating the severity of the attack launched at him by the jihadis.
Abhishek Rajput, a Hindu devotee who participated in the Jalabhishek Yatra, was another victim of the bloodthirsty mob of Islamists that not only shot at him but also slit his throat and crushed his head with stones, a stark resemblance to the methods Taliban and ISIS terrorists to kill their victims.
Not just Hindu devotees who participated in the procession but local Hindus, too, were caught in the crosshair of the Islamists, who remained indiscriminate in killing and attacking Hindus regardless of whether they took part in the Jalabhishek Yatra or not. A sweet seller Shakti Saini was also killed by the Islamist mob. As per eyewitness account, Saini was abducted from the shop and taken elsewhere and later killed and then the dead body was dumped at the same Badkali square around which his shop was located.
Similarly, Pradeep Kumar, a Hindu devotee and a Bajrang Dal activist, was the sixth victim of the violence that Islamists had planned as an interrogation of the arrested youth has revealed, who confessed that WhatsApp groups were created as early as July 21 to July 23 and responsibilities assigned to group admins to gather stones and collect glass bottles to attack Hindu procession scheduled to take place on July 31.
Pradeep Kumar, as per an eyewitness account, was rescued safely from the Nalhar temple, where several Hindus were hiding to save themselves from the Islamist mob, and brought to the Nuh police lines. The Islamists, however, ruthlessly killed him on Tuesday, August 1, while he was returning from the police station.
Kapil Tyagi, another Bajrang Dal activist who was accompanying Pradeep Kumar when he was attacked and killed, spoke to Opindia. Recalling how the murderous Islamist mob launched a vicious attack on their car while they were returning from Nuh police lines in the early hours of Tuesday, Kapil Tyagi said that it appeared as if these Islamists were waiting in ambush the entire night. “When they saw our car, they launched a murderous attack on us. Pradeep Kumar, who could not defend himself due to being badly injured, died.” Kapil Tyagi also suffered a lot of injuries in this attack and is undergoing treatment.
While foreign media organisations and their intellectual allies in India’s Left intelligentsia work overtime to brand Muslims as victims of the Nuh violence, the irrefutable evidence of a preplanned conspiracy, the CCTV footage, and the eyewitness account of the victims point to the involvement of Islamic zealots who conspired to attack the Hindu devotees and executed their plan in cold blood.