On Friday, August 26, Harihar Pandey, the first Hindu petitioner in the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi mosque dispute case allegedly received a life threat from a Pakistani number. The caller threatened to kill him and his family. Besides, to intimidate him, the accused also sent the Hindu petitioner a morphed picture wherein Pandey’s head was severed. However, a day after Harihar Pandey lodged a complaint about the threat with the Laksa Police Station in Varanasi, Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar interviewed the Pakistani accused, only to whitewash his crime.
The report by the Hindi media house was published on August 27, 2022. The headline of the report itself tried to absolve the perpetrator of the crime. The report’s headline in Hindi can be roughly translated to, “Bhaskar Exclusive: Conversation with the boy who threatened the Gyanvapi petitioner: 22-year-old Pakistani said – called thinking to be a girl, did not threaten him.”
The exclusive report published by Dainik Bhaskar justified the crime committed by the Pakistani youth by explaining how he agreed that it was a small mistake on his part. The report stated that the youth named Fahad refuted the allegations that he had issued death threats to Harihar Pandey and his family.
The report read that the 22-year-old Fahad had told the correspondent that he got Pandey’s number from Facebook. He said that the particular number was posted on Facebook with a picture of a girl and he had dialled him thinking the number to be that of a girl.
The accused was quoted by Dainik Bhaskar as saying, “I want to apologize to him, but he has blocked my number. I don’t even know them, what will I get by threatening them? I didn’t even send him any photo.”
“I had merely sent Harihar Pandey a Whatsapp message that read “salam”. The moment I heard his voice on the phone I disconnected the call. I have deleted the message and the call record,” the Pakistani accused reportedly told Dainik Bhaskar.
The report further said that Fahad told the correspondent over the phone that his only mistake was that he called on that number thinking it to of a girl. “The people of India have turned me into a traitor. The issues of temple mosques are older than the independence of India. What can I do in this?” Fahad was quoted by the media house as saying.
Notably, this threat was the second such that Harihar Pandey has received. Last year too, he received a life threat over the phone following which he was provided security. Harihar Pandey, Pandit Somnath Vyas and Ramrang Sharma filed the first petition in the case on behalf of Swayambhu Jyotirlinga Bhagwan Vishweshwar in a civil court in 1991. Pandey is now the only surviving petitioner among the three.
How media whitewashes crimes committed by Islamists against Hindus
Such incidents are becoming exceedingly common where intolerant Islamists are opening issuing death and beheading threats to Hindus, or for the matter of fact going on a killing spree for alleged blasphemy. The Indian media, however, instead of condemning such crimes, have often tried to whitewash the crimes by either its biased coverage or by providing platforms to such Islamists.
One such example of the Indian leftist media’s biased coverage was that of the heinous murder of the 27-year-old Hindu youth Kishan Bharwad on January 25.
OpIndia reported how a horrifying tragedy befell a 27-year-old Hindu man, Kishan Bharwad when Islamists murdered him over a social media post that they believed was against Islam. Kishan had reportedly shared a video that had an image of Prophet Muhammad. The Gujarat police arrested the two bike-borne assailants-Shabbir (25) and Imtiaz (27), who shot the Hindu youth.
From the very beginning, it was clear that the Hindu youth was shot dead as some Islamists took offence to his social media post that they deemed insulting. However, the moment news of the brutal killing of Kishan Bharwad surfaced, the usual ‘left-liberal’ media houses like The Indian Express, The Print, TOI as well as many vernacular media houses totally whitewashed the murder since clearly in this case too, the victim was a Hindu and the perpetrators belonged to their favourite ‘minority’ section of the society.
Earlier too, Opindia reported about the media’s ability to give a ‘Hindu spin’ to crimes committed by Muslims. Be it the Hauz Qazi incident or the menace of forced religious conversions, leftist media has always tried to whitewash crimes when the perpetrator has belonged to their favourite ‘minority’.
