An occult practitioner and his friends have brutally gang-raped a 15-year-old girl from the Gajraula town of Amroha in the Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh on the pretext of curing her of an unknown illness.

According to the reports, an occult practitioner identified as Afzal Malik and his three friends Tariq, Aslam and Zulfiqar allegedly gang-raped the minor girl after luring her to his place by claiming that he would cure her illness.

In her complaint, the victim’s family stated that their daughter suffering from an illness for a long time. Tariq, a resident of Bhawanpur and an acquaintance of the family, had introduced them to another occult practitioner man Afzal Malik, a resident of Rashidnagar. Tariq had claimed to the girl’s parents that Afzal could cure their daughter and took them to Afzal, the family said in its complaint.

The survivor’s mother said, “My daughter has been ill for the past eight months. On the advice of an acquaintance, I met Afzal Malik, a resident of Lisari Gate who promised to treat and cure my daughter within two months”.

The girl’s family also said that all three colluded to gang-rape the victim when she visited Afzal’s house for the treatment.

After raping the minor girl, the occult practitioner also threatened the victim not to complain to police about the crime. Apparently, Tariq and Zulfiqar were also learning the occult practises from Afzal at his place.

The victim escaped from the place and informed her parents about the incident, who lodged a complaint against the three accused. The family also accused Afzal of forcing them to sell their land for Rs 26 lakh, claiming that they would make the amount double but has been avoiding contact with them after taking the money.

A case has been registered against the three accused. Meanwhile, the police have launched the hunt for the absconding accused.

‘Secular’ media turns Muslim occult practitioner into ‘Tantrik’

Even as the names of the perpetrator of the crime is clearly visible in their own report, the Times of India resorted to ‘secularise’ the crime by attempting to give a Hindu spin to the crime by referring to the accused as ‘Tantrik’.

In yet another display of how media often shields the real perpetrators of heinous crimes, the Times of India not only attempted to hide the religious identity of the three rape-accused by hiding their names in the headline of their report but also give a Hindu spin to the crime by referring to him as a ‘Tantrik’.

In its report, the Times of India clearly mentions that the rape accused is an occult practitioner named Afzal. However, in an attempt to ‘secularise’ the crime, the ToI in its report misleadingly refers to the accused as a ‘Tantrik’.

Not just Times of India, even Times Now, resorted to a similar tactic of peddling the same propaganda by claiming that the arrested individual in the cheating case was a ‘Tantrik’.

In general parlance, the ‘Tantrik’ is a practitioner of the “tantra vidya”, is mainly associated with Hinduism, leading to a perception that a Hindu individual committed the crime.

Times of India – repeat offender of ‘secularising’ crimes

In their leftist and general anti-Hindu bias, media organisations often resort to chicanery by deliberately ignoring complete details and leaving out the identities of the criminals altogether if they belong to one particular community.

The Times of India has caught several times in the past by passing off such criminals as ‘Tantrik’ in an attempt to secularise the crime. For example, in October, the TOI had attempted to give a Hindu spin to a crime perpetrated by an Islamic cleric, who is an accused in the sex racket, by referring to him as a ‘Tantrik’.

In 2018, Time of India reported that a ‘godman’ forced his male devotees into ‘unnatural sex’ in Maharashtra. As per the report, one Asif Noori was the culprit, but TOI had tweeted the same report, using the image of a sketch of a sadhu to mislead its readers. In another case, TOI used the word ‘Swami’ and ‘baba’, other Hindus terms, for a rapist who actually belonged to the Muslim community.

The practice rather hypocritical, because the same media organisations actually go hyper with religious identifications when the victim and accused religions are reversed.