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India Today does it again, releases clip of BJP spokesperson’s response after being shamed on social media

OpIndia Staff
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India Today does it again, releases clip of BJP spokesperson’s response after being shamed on social media

Some news channels and their anchors have been well known for blatantly peddling their political agenda. Rajdeep Sardesai has been called out time and again for his anti-Modi bias and tendency to hail Congress while using all resources at his disposal to belittle the BJP.

Yesterday, BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya was invited to Rajdeep’s show on India Today TV over a debate on the PM’s slogan for “Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Vishwas”. As many media houses and left-leaning journos have been doing since the Modi government won a second term, Rajdeep tried to spin the argument claiming that under the BJP government minorities are not safe and whether the PM’s slogan can also mean protection of the minorities.

India Today, and for that matter, many of the mainstream media channels had run the story of the Gurugram alleged attack on a Muslim man claiming that it was a hate crime where the man was forced to chant Jai Shree Ram and was threatened to be fed pork. India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai had conducted a debate on 27 May over the issue where BJP’s Amit Malviya had slammed Rajdeep for his selective outrage and had exposed his bias of giving communal hues to petty crimes.

Yesterday, it was found that the CCTV footage examination by the Gurugram police concluded that the alleged attack on the Muslim man was not a hate crime but a case of minor scuffle by a drunken man. The victim’s claims of his skullcap being thrown and him being forced to chant ‘Jai Shree Ram’ were nowhere to be found in the initial statement given to police.

However, the social media handle of India Today had initially not shared the video clip with Malviya’s response. Many Twitter users had noticed it and had asked India Today to share the full version where Amit Malviya is seen exposing Rajdeep Sardesai’s agenda.


After several Twitter users raising the issue, finally, India Today shared the video clip with Malviya’s response to Sardesai.


In the debate, Malviya had called out Rajdeep Sardesai for deliberately giving communal hues to the Gurugram and Begusarai incidents. He had also asked him why he had not held Kamal Nath accountable for the incident from Madhya Pradesh where some cattle meat smugglers were beaten up by Gau Rakshaks as law and order are a state subject.

Malviya had also asked Rajdeep why had he not run reports on the Mathura case where a Hindu lassi vendor was attacked and killed by Muslim men who did not want to pay after drinking the lassi. He had also asked Rajdeep over his show not reporting the incident of Meerut where a minor Hindu girl was abducted and forcefully converted into Islam.

This is not the first time India Today channel withheld view from public view. During the elections, the channel had advertised an interview with Rahul Gandhi, asking viewers to ‘watch’ it. But later they had published only a text interview, and no video of the same was released.

BJD’s Naveen Patnaik takes oath as the Odisha CM for the record fifth consecutive term

OpIndia Staff
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BJD’s Naveen Patnaik takes oath as the Odisha CM for the record fifth consecutive term

The Biju Janata Dal supremo Naveen Patnaik embarked on a record fifth term in power after a clear victory in Odisha’s four-phase Assembly elections which were held simultaneously with Lok Sabha polls.


Governor Ganeshi Lal administered the oath of office and secrecy to Naveen Patnaik and other ministers at 10:30 am at a function in Bhubaneswar today. The swearing-in was held in full public view, in the Exhibition Ground outside the Raj Bhavan.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlKYH9zDcDA]

In the state’s 147-member Assembly, the regional party won 112 seats and returned to power for a fifth consecutive term. BJP won 23 Assembly seats while Congress got only eight. Of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state, BJD managed to win 12 while BJP bagged eight and Congress one.

On the eve of swearing in 11 cabinet ministers and nine ministers of state were appointed by the governor on Patnaik’s recommendation. The total strength of the council of ministers in Odisha is 21, including the Chief Minister.

Patnaik’s new ministry will have 10 new faces: Telkoi MLA Premaanda Nayak, Titlagarh MLA Tukuni Sahu (Woman), Nimapara MLA Sameer Das, Jharsuguda MLA Naba Kishore Das, Kotpad MLA Padmini Dian (Woman), Balikuda-Erasama MLA Raghunandan Das, Junagarh MLA Dibyashankar Mishra, Bissam Cuttack MLA Jagannath Saraka, Simulia MLA Jyotiprakash Panigarhi, and Kakatpur MLA Tusharkanti Behera.

The 11 cabinet ministers are: Ranendra Pratap Swain, Bikram Keshari Arukha, Prafulla Mallick, Niranjan Pujari, Padmanabh Behera, Pratap Jena, Arun Kumar Sahoo, Sudam Marandi, Sushant Singh, Naba Kishore Das, and Tukuni Sahu (woman).

The nine Ministers of State are: Ashok Chandra Panda, Sameer Ranjan Dash, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Premananda Nayak, Raghunandan Das, Padmini Dian (Woman), Tusharkanti Behera and Jagannath Saraka.

Former minister Surya Narayan Patro will be nominated for the Speaker’s post while former minister Pramila Mallick will be appointed as the Government Chief Whip, according to sources.

The role of Chief Whip is regarded as secretive, as the Whip is concerned with the discipline of their own party’s Members of the house and never makes public appearances in their capacity as a whip.

Bikram Arukh, Pratap Jena, Niranjan Pujari, Prafulla Mallick, Ashok Panda and Sushant Singh are among the legislators who retained their ministerial berths.

Meanwhile, a day before taking oath as chief minister, BJD president Naveen Patnaik Tuesday visited Shree Jagannath temple in Puri.


The state leaders of all national and regional parties, top industrialists and investors, and leaders of several organisations of farmers, women, and teachers had been invited to attend Patnaik’s swearing-in ceremony. 7000 invitees were likely to attend the ceremony.

“We have invited everyone. The PM has been invited, too. Those who took part in the ‘Make in Odisha’ initiative and all those who are involved in furthering the state’s interests have been invited,” said BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb.

Patnaik had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the swearing-in ceremony. Though Modi did not attend the function, he congratulated Patnaik through Twitter.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi through his message assured Centre’s complete cooperation to Naveen Patnaik and offered his best wishes to him and his team in fulfilling the people’s aspirations.

Meanwhile, after a landslide victory in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi is also set to take an oath for his consecutive second term on May 30.

Jaipur: School teacher Rameez Raja awarded life term by POCSO court for sexually abusing dozens of students

OpIndia Staff
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Jaipur: School teacher Rameez Raja awarded life term by POCSO court for sexually abusing dozens of students

Finding a private school teacher, Rameez Raja guilty of rape, abuse and blackmailing of over 50 children, magistrate Rajesh Kumar of a special POCSO court awarded him life imprisonment in Jaipur here on Tuesday.

The court has imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on the paedophile teacher who has been convicted under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act by the POCSO court-3 for a case which goes back to 2017.

“Raja sodomised the students who used to go to his home for tuition classes. He made video clippings of the crime and had been asking the students to bring money for him,” the counsel of one of the victims, Aslam Khan, said.

He circulated some clippings on social media and parents of one of the victims saw it, following which an FIR was lodged in February 2017.

Rameez Raja was arrested on February 9, 2017, by Ramganj police. After investigation, Ramganj police presented the challan in the court on April 28, 2017. During the hearing, 21 witnesses were present in the court.

The accused had sexually abused over 50 children in a span of 6 years, from 2011-2017 until he was arrested. Besides, he had also recorded 50 pornographic clippings of young boys.

The school where Rameez taught is situated in Char Darwaza area of Ramganj.

Apart from teaching in the school, Rameez also took private tuitions. He sexually abused the children coming for tuition and made video recordings of the same. He then demanded money from the students and blackmailed them threatening to make the videos public or failing them in exams.

The residents of Ramganj had then taken out rallies demanding strict action against the paedophile.

Further investigations had then revealed that the administration of the school where Rameez was teaching hadn’t taken action, except for firing him, even after the matter was brought to its notice.

The police had later arrested the school owner, Sarwar Alam for hiding evidence. He has, however, now been acquitted by the POCSO court.

Congress’ Shashi Tharoor accepts half the population would have had to pay for NYAY

OpIndia Staff
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Congress’ Shashi Tharoor accepts half the population would have had to pay for NYAY

During the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress President Rahul Gandhi had offered a ‘revolutionary’ minimum income guarantee scheme or NYAY which promised Rs 72,000 basic income for 20% of India’s population.

When people asked Rahul Gandhi how the scheme would be funded, he had said that it would be funded by the amount recovered from bank loan defaulters, which actually belongs to the depositors. Now, Congress leader and three-time MP from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, in an interview to Hindustan Times, has said that the one of the reasons NYAY did not resonate with people was that it the message may have reached only “half the electorate and perhaps even the wrong half – mainly centred in urban areas and among professional classes, who would be paying for the scheme, rather than bottom 20%, mainly rural India, who would become beneficiaries of it.” (emphasis added.)

In a way, Tharoor accepted that half the population, especially the urban and middle class, would have been paying for the free money scheme Congress had envisaged to eradicate poverty. Earlier, Congress President had categorically said how the burden of NYAY would not have fallen on the middle class as the scheme would be funded by money recovered from defaulters (which also technically belongs to people since the loan money recovered belongs to the depositors).

What Tharoor has said was already known as Congress leaders like Sam Pitroda had even tried to guilt the middle class into funding NYAY. Abhijit Banerjee, the economist who has been advising Congress in the formulation of the scheme had also stated that NYAY will have to be funded by rising inflation and new taxes.

All this while, Congress President Rahul Gandhi maintained that NYAY will not burden the middle class. Now, Tharoor, too, has called out Rahul’s lies by inadvertently saying how the burden of NYAY would have been on the urban and the professional class, had Congress managed to sail through.

Families of over 50 BJP workers killed in West Bengal to attend PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan

OpIndia Staff
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Families of over 50 BJP workers killed in West Bengal to attend PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan

As a mark of respect, kins of over 50 BJP workers who have lost their lives in West Bengal political violence over the years have been invited to the swearing-in ceremony of the Prime Minister and his cabinet to be held in Delhi on May 30, reports Times of India.

PM Narendra Modi is set to continue for another term after it secured a significant majority in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Unlike 2014, when BJP had secured only 2 seats in West Bengal, this time it created history by bagging 18 seats out of a total of 42. It gave the ruling party a tough fight, however, lost the lives of innumerable ground-level workers and leaders in the process. Riding high on the 2019 Lok Sabha success BJP is now eying at the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal.

The news report states that the families of 51 BJP workers who have lost their lives during the last West Bengal Panchayat polls and recently concluded Lok Sabha elections will be amongst the 7000 invitees for the high profile event at the Jaipur Gate of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The family members are scheduled to leave for the capital on Wednesday by train and reach Delhi on Thursday and the supervision of senior state party functionaries.

Out of the total 51 invitees, 47 are families of those who were killed during Panchayat poll violence while 5 of those killed in the recent Lok Sabha election. The families are mostly from Barrackpore, Krishnagar, Nadia, Purulia, Malda, Bankura, West Midnapore, Jhargram, South 24 Parganas, Burdwan, Ranaghat, Birbhum and Cooch Behar.

“Support for the party is pouring in from across the state and we have to empathise with the families which lost their near and dear ones in political violence in the state”, said a BJP worker adding that messages have been sent out to BJP cadres and ground-level workers to not get intimidated as the party and its top brass stand strongly with them.

BJP has repeatedly confirmed that the party has lost almost 68 workers since Panchayat polls last year in West Bengal. West Bengal elections have always been the most bloody one. Every BJP vote in Bengal is owed to the ground level workers who have given their lifeblood for the saffron surge. Dozens of BJP workers and leaders have been brutally attacked or killed before and during the election seasons in Bengal.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is also likely to be present for the swearing-in ceremony on May 30.

Himanta Biswa Sarma pokes fun at Rahul Gandhi, says BJP will be happy if he remains Congress president for next 50 years

OpIndia Staff
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Himanta Biswa Sarma pokes fun at Rahul Gandhi, says BJP will be happy if he remains Congress president for next 50 years

After the Congress Party faced existential crisis following the Lok Sabha debacle, Rahul Gandhi had expressed his adamancy on resigning from his post of the party President.

As the Congress loyalists struggle to prevent the party from fragmenting, BJP’s Himanta Biswa Sarma today jeered at the crisis over Rahul Gandhi’s continuation as the party chief. Talking to the media about the post-polls resignation drama Biswa said, “having Mr Gandhi at the helm would be good for the BJP, but it would not be good for democracy, which needs a vibrant opposition in order to survive”.

The resignation drama outlined by Congress President Rahul Gandhi is to save himself from the embarrassment of losing miserably in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Congress suffered major humiliation after it bagged a flimsy tally of 52 seats out of a total of 542 seats in the Lok Sabha.

Reports state that Rahul Gandhi, despite being pestered by senior party leaders to change his decision, is still adamant on resigning from the party president post. Moreover, throwing the party into a further quandary, he has asked that his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra not be considered as his replacement.

Meanwhile, Himanta Biswa added, “If Rahul Gandhi continues, there is no hope for opposition. From the BJP perspective, we will be happy if Rahul Gandhi continues for the next 50 years.”

“But for all democracy, you need a vibrant opposition and as long as Rahul Gandhi is the face of the Congress and opposition, that is not going to happen. If there is no Rahul Gandhi, then there is a possibility that in the days to come, we might see an emerging vibrant opposition,” added the NEDA chief.

Moreover, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has been instrumental in helping BJP establish its control over all seven states in the Northeast had earlier too, after BJP emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha elections, criticised Rahul Gandhi and attributed Congress’ defeat to him.

On the day of the poll results, Sarma had said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi is not cut out for politics and the party should give him a “decent retirement”.

Opinionating that any elected Congress president minus a dynastic background will be good enough to lead the party better than Rahul Gandhi, the Assam finance minister had said, “I must have met him (Rahul) around 20 times in my life…I feel pity for him. Sonia Gandhi (UPA chairperson and former Congress chief) has thrust him on the Congress. He is a person who has come from a privileged background, he doesn’t respect his colleagues,” Sarma said.

“He (Rahul) should be given a decent retirement because if he does not quit politics, then in India the next 25 years will be dominated by the ruling party (BJP) and there won’t be any opposition, and there would only be BJP and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi,” added the BJP leader.

Meanwhile, there are many Congress loyalists who are trying their utmost best to stop Rahul from quitting as the party President. Reports have it that to further discuss the issue related to Rahul’s resignation another meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) has been called, later in the week.

However, it would be interesting to see as to how long can Rahul shield behind this farce and use the deadweight of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to safeguard his position.

India Today’s Lallantop ‘fact checks’ a 9 month-old satirical article, calls it ‘authentic’ report

OpIndia Staff
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India Today’s Lallantop ‘fact checks’ a 9 month-old satirical article, calls it ‘authentic’ report

TheLallantop.com, Hindi news and opinion website owned by the India Today group, which asserts to be a fake-news buster, recently fact-checked a 9-month-old satirical article and passed off the claim as ‘authentic’. The sarcastic article was first posted on Fauxy website, a satire site, in September 2018 wherein the author took a humorous dig at the abundance of food bloggers that seek free meals from restaurants in return for rave reviews.

The satirical article mentioned how a restauranteur in Delhi got a fake food blogger, who had not posted a single food blog and had only come to enjoy a free meal, arrested by calling in the police at the right time.

The satirical piece was widely shared by people, creating ripples on the internet, and forcing many news media outlets like india.com, Firstpost to cover it without verifying its authenticity or paying heed to the sarcastic nature of the website, the Fauxy. The Lallantop posted a Fact-checking analysis of the hilarious article on May 15 on its website to declare the incident had indeed happened in New Delhi.

According to the Lallantop, they conduct ‘workshops’ in collaboration with Facebook to identify fake stories and debunk them. In one such workshop, one of their readers had asked them to fact-check and bust the famous story of a food blogger being arrested in Delhi.

In line with their duty to fact-check, the Lallantop called the Fauxy a foreign website that covered the arrest of a food blogger in Delhi on their website. It fallaciously declared the arrest of the food blogger ‘authentic’ by citing the Hindustan Times report that clearly stated the news as fake.

Note: Realising that article on the arrest of the food blogger was a satire, Lallantop.com has now updated its report and expressed its regrets over misleading its readers by fact-checking a satirical article and blamed the ubiquity of fake news responsible for their error, instead of owning up their mistake of fact-checking a satirical piece.

“Neither yoga nor yogi can save you, only Jesus can”: Christian pastor rants in front of Adiyogi statue, video goes viral

OpIndia Staff
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“Neither yoga nor yogi can save you, only Jesus can”: Christian pastor rants in front of Adiyogi statue, video goes viral

A video-clip, where a Christian pastor is seen shouting “neither yoga nor yogi can save you, only Jesus can” before the famous Adiyogi statue at the Isha Yoga Centre in Coimbatore, is being widely shared on the internet.


The pastor whose name according to reports is Jesapin adds, “Neither Yoga nor yogi can save you, only Jesus has spilled his blood for us, only he can save you.” He continued to rant for about 30 seconds and left while stunned onlookers tried to make sense.

Ironically, the symbols of all major religions including Islam and Christianity adorn the premises of the Isha Yoga Center, representing unity and harmony between all religions.

Talking to Opindia, Swami Tushya, Spokesperson of Isha Foundation said, “It’s not about who shouted what slogan at Adiyogi. What’s worrisome is that people who claim to be the torchbearers of secularism, liberty, and tolerance, are quiet. This incidence is a testimony of the all-inclusiveness that our glorious tradition stands for. Adiyogi stands for liberation and all-inclusiveness hence we don’t plan to make any complaint or take action against anybody.”

Isha Foundation, in adherence to its principles, may not take any action against the mischievous pastor, but this incident is not the first of its kind where Christian evangelists have brazenly insulted Hinduism. Evangelist Mohan Lazarus had in September 2018 called Hindu temples, “Satan’s strongholds”. Lazarus who owns Tamil television channel Sathiyam TV, is infamous for repeatedly insulting Hindus and Hinduism. He has, in the past, insulted spiritual leaders of the Kanchi mutt.

Christian evangelists in India openly attack Hindus by calling deities ‘false Gods’ but resort to questionable methods to convert people to their faith. These attacks are not restricted to India alone.

Earlier this year, Swaminarayan Temple was vandalized in the US state of Kentucky, where miscreants sprayed black paint on the deity and wrote ‘Jesus is the only God’ on the walls.

Time and again Christain organizations, evangelists and personalities have tried to demean other religions including Hinduism and Buddhism by calling them demonic and monstrous.

The pastor screaming freely within the Isha Yoga Centre is being criticized, and people are coming out to condemn his slurs.

Forced conversions are a menace and reality across India. Earlier we had reported about a steady rise in the conversions of Hindus in many districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Every time a liberal rues Atishi Marlena’s defeat, it is an insult of East Delhi voters

Anurag Dixit
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Every time a liberal rues Atishi Marlena’s defeat, it is an insult of East Delhi voters

“I don’t think…” then you shouldn’t talk said the hatter. This quote from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol is so apt for liberals, sections of media and the Aam Aadmi Party cadre who are lamenting and calling the loss of Atishi Marlena to Gautam Gambhir unfair. As some of us would know, the real name of Lewis Carroll was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and ironically, he taught mathematics at Christ Church College, University of Oxford, the alma mater of Ms Marlena, which all her supporters believe was reason enough for her to become the Member of Parliament from East Delhi. Adding to the irony, Dodgson also did pioneering work in electoral systems, which is now known as the Dodgson method and if it would have been applied in East Delhi scenario, Ms Marlena would have still lost the election.

Coming back to the comparison between Gautam Gambhir and Atishi Marlena, the first thing that her mourning supporters should realize that it was not an election to choose the education minister of India but the Loksabha MP from East Delhi and we don’t even need to get into the veracity of AAP’s claims of her achievement, which like many of their propaganda is not substantiated by real numbers. A party like BJP, which was looking to beat anti-incumbency would have looked at a lot of factors before deciding Gambhir’s candidature. Being a cricketer or an Oxford alumnus may get you brownie points but they may not be enough to make you a successful politician over a period of time. Imran Khan, the current PM of Pakistan was both a cricketer and alumnus of Oxford and we all know how he is driving Pakistan into an abyss.

So, what makes Gautam Gambhir a potentially successful politician. He is popular and has charisma. He is hardworking and has demonstrated leadership qualities by successfully leading Indian and IPL teams victory. Gautam has been committed to social and nationalistic causes even before joining politics and has been supporting children and families of Martyr. He has displayed a strong patriotic character at various instances. All these credentials, which unfortunately Ms Marlena lacks, resonated well with the Zeitgeist and he won by a huge margin. It is an insult of East Delhi voters, every time a liberal rues Ms Marlena’s defeat. Instead, they should introspect why after the dirtiest smear campaign run by Ms Marlena and her party, she could not save her deposit.

Time will tell if Gautam Gambhir will turn out a successful politician and a leader true to his potential but the real question that Ms Marlena supporters and AAP cadres need to ask is, if Atishi Marlena is so qualified, why didn’t the party send her to Rajya Sabha, instead of two nondescript and opportunist businessmen. Or why she is not the Education Minister of Delhi if she has revolutionised Education in Delhi just as an advisor. Didn’t the party believe in her work or intellect at that time? It is high time that people question the hypocrisy of the Party to which Marlena belongs rather than questioning the qualifications and credentials of Gautam Gambhir. People have spoken and that is what it counts. Those in doubt should just listen to Mad Hatter and stop lamenting.

The Hindu reports alleged hate crime of Muslim man forced to chant Jai Shri Ram when the victim said it was too trivial

OpIndia Staff
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The Hindu reports alleged hate crime of Muslim man forced to chant Jai Shri Ram when the victim said it was too trivial

In recent times, a flurry ‘hate crimes’ are being reported by the mainstream media to peddle the narratives of ‘minorities under attack’ and ‘right-wing intolerance’. After the BJP registered a thumping victory in the 2019 General Elections, efforts towards that end only appear to have been accelerated.

Only today, the narrative around one such alleged ‘hate crime‘ was busted. The Police revealed that it was a brawl involving drunk men whole denying that the skull cap of the alleged victim was forcibly removed as claimed. The alleged victim’s complaint, too, did not mention the perpetrators chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

Before the day was over yet, another such incident has come to light. This one involves an alleged attack on a doctor by youths chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. The Hindu reported, “Eminent Pune doctor accosted by gang in New Delhi, asked his religion, forced to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’”. However, now it has come to light that the matter was confided in a friend and not even reported to the Police.

“He [Dr. Gadre] was staying at the YMCA near Jantar Mantar as he was due to deliver a lecture organized by Indian Medical Association at Bijnor the next day. When he left for his morning stroll, he was accosted by a gang of five-six youth near the Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place. They surrounded him, asked him what religion he was and finally demanded that he chant ‘Jai Shri Ram,” said Anant Bagaitkar, a senior journalist, to whom the alleged victim, Dr. Arun Gadre, narrated the event as per the report on The Hindu.

“On 26 May, I was taking a morning walk in Delhi at around 6 a.m. near the YMCA. Suddenly, few youths [confronted me] and asked me to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’. I was a little taken aback and said it. They insisted I say it loudly. I just walked away and they let me. I was not physically manhandled…I did not want to make it public nor report it to the police because I thought it to be trivial…I request everyone to treat it as trivial and not draw any conclusion,” Dr. Gadre is reported to have said when asked about the incident.

On the face of it, there’s no evidence to back up the claims at all. If at all such a thing happened, the doctor thought it was so trivial that it wasn’t worthy of reporting to the Police. Moreover, the source of the report is not even primary, as The Hindu says that the doctor had narrated the incident to a journalist, from where it reached the newspaper. It is not sure whether The Hindu talked to the doctor to verify whether the incident occurred at all. Under such circumstances, it appears a very deliberate ploy to peddle a pre-decided agenda.

Journalists are expected to do some manner of verification before publishing a report. Here, quite clearly, the journalist has taken the doctor’s words as gospel truth without any evidence whatsoever. Moreover, the headline shows that the larger objective is to peddle a malicious agenda while failing to make it clear that the doctor himself believed the matter to be trivial. He was not touched physically at all as he says himself.

As we have said earlier, there’s a dedicated agenda behind the efforts to keep the communal pot boiling. It appears going forward, we can expect a wave of invented mythical hate crimes.

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