A haze of fear surrounded the Nation as a letter dredged up by Pune Police suggests plans to assassinate Prime Minister Modi in a “Rajiv Gandhi type incident” by “targeting road shows”.
The letter, dated April 18, 2017, and addressed to one “Comrade Prakash”, was found from the home of Delhi-based activist Rona Wilson, the police claimed. Rona Wilson and four others were arrested on Wednesday for links with the banned CPI-Maoist. The letter is signed “R” which, the police suspect, is for “Rona Wilson”.
Pune Police intercepts internal communication of Maoists planning a ‘Rajiv Gandhi type’ assassination of Prime Minister Modi. pic.twitter.com/o2rt2al4aj
— ANI (@ANI) June 8, 2018
Many “prominent commentators”, especially the Editor-in-Chief of ‘The Print’, Shekhar Gupta, seemed to not only caustically rejoice the assassination threat but also question the authenticity of the letter by wondering why the Maoist would be ‘stupid enough’ to plan it over email.
If the “letter” is for real as Pune Police claims, then these revolutionaries should spend the rest of their lives in the asylum, not jail. For being so unhinged as to put plans to assassinate the prime minister, in writing https://t.co/3dRecCeLR9
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) June 8, 2018
Busy peddling controversial statements, it seems Shekhar Gupta habitually forgets to get his facts right and tweets, just like he publishes articles on ‘The Print’ without any due diligence or research.
A few years back while investigating agencies were probing Delhi University professor G N Saibaba, who was arrested for his Naxal links, had reportedly extracted some e-mails and information from his computer that suggests he recruited at least one more student from JNU as a “professional revolutionary” to work in Chattisgarh. This definitely makes it quite clear that planning such attacks through e-mails is not new and Maoist do use this medium to organize such attacks. There have been cases where they have regularly used unsigned letters to communicate as well.
As countries worldwide are struggling to fight the menace of fake news, there seems to be no dearth of a fresh onslaught of baseless, factless news and the people propagating it. Shekhar Gupta, a big-league in the world of journalism has a penchant for peddling fake news and getting regularly slammed for propagating false narratives, in his endeavour to sensationalize every issue. Netizens were beyond words, as to how Shekhar, who himself is a habitual liar is questioning the authenticity of the threat. Soon after he tweeted, social media lashed out at him saying,
— Ashok #NewIndia (@cashkumark) June 8, 2018
Shekhar is one among them, he is member of Sonia core planning team to assassinate Modi….
— BHARAT2075 (@krishtyh) June 8, 2018
Like Shekhar Gupta, there are other journalists too, who also chimed in the same ridiculous rationale to whitewash the Maoists planning the assassination. Saba Naqvi was one of them, taking the similar ludicrous direction.
And if Maoists are writing emails about assassinating the PM and getting Congress support and thereby leaving an electronic trail, they really must be the dumbest extremists in the world.
— Saba Naqvi (@_sabanaqvi) June 8, 2018
Shekhar Gupta’s cloaked ecstasy over PM Modi’s assassination plot comes as no surprise, as he regularly encourages people working for him to foster such animosities. A troll, who has been touted as a columnist and “feminist poet” by Shekhar Gupta, Harnidh Kaur, had also hoped that someone would assassinate Modi like Gose had assassinated Gandhi.
While Maoists are being arrested for plotting assassinations, many liberal darlings like Kaur, have also openly wished for such attempts on the Prime Minister. In January last year, a Times Now journalist, Prashant Kumar, had also wished for the assassination of Modi. Earlier, Suprateek Chatterjee, a columnist with The Quint had also tweeted death wish on Modi. That is not the only time The Quint has given a platform to people who go upon wishing death and political assassination. Vikas Malhotra, an author at The Quint, too preferred political assassination (of PM Modi) to create history.
While the ‘liberals’ do what they also do, on an interesting note, it does seem like someone at Shekhar Gupta’s media outlet hates him. While he was busy mocking the fact that Maoist used emails to plot the assassination rather than showing concern about the fact that the Nation’s PM is facing life threats, there are people in his own media house retweeting netizens shaming Shekhar for his views.
