Basic decency would demand that a journalist and media house remain loyal to their profession and obligations as individuals/outlets who are charged with the job of practising journalism. The lines between journalism and agitprop, especially in India, have always remain blurred, with the media regularly considering itself to be the lapdog of the politburo.
The Telegraph, an elitist Trinamool rag known for its condescending and supercilious headlines aimed mostly against the ruling party had carried a report on 29th December claiming that the Uttar Pradesh police had last month, after the Friday prayers on 20th December, detained approximately a hundred students of the Saadat Madrassa in Muzzafarnagar along with its headmaster, Maulana Asad Raza Hussaini. These individuals were taken to nearby police barracks and mercilessly assaulted, the report insinuates. Students were made to chant Jai Shree Ram and also were allegedly asked to drink urine instead of water.
Further and most importantly, the Telegraph also claimed that students and the Maulana had suffered rectal bleeding insinuating that the children were raped and sexually assaulted while in custody under UP Police. Following suit, The Guardian too claimed that a ‘rod was shoved up his (the cleric’s) anus, causing rectal bleeding,’ adding that the Police made them chant ‘Hindu nationalist slogans’ like ‘Jai Shri Ram.’
The Telegraph newspaper, whose only merit in existence is that it manages to write reports using flamboyant English, and is in the good-books of Mamata Banerjee; quoted a local Congress leader Salman Saed and published this load of trash without caring to verify the claims, or even interview the ‘victims’. As a result, The Print yesterday helped debunk the collection of unadulterated lies.
Although the Print’s report is shoddy as well, however, it at least seems that they cared to enquire about the truth from the students of the Madrassa. The students unequivocally dismissed such insinuations of the children being sodomised saying that there is no intention of them to lie.
“This isn’t true. Neither the children nor maulana sahab suffered rectal bleeding. They were beaten brutally, which in itself was a horrible experience. We don’t need to make up any allegations,” Naved Alam, a relative and confidante of Hussaini told the Print. It must be remembered that the Print itself had yesterday also carried a report pertaining to the Faiz controversy at IIT-K, in which it had claimed that Professor Vashi Sharma, Principal complainant, ‘condemned dalit upliftment’, while Sharma’s activism indeed revolves around dalits.
All these claims were refuted by Vashi Sharma, who to his defence put out recordings of his conversation with the Print Correspondent, Prashant Shrivastava, hearing which one is exposed to the bias of the journalist as well as that of the portal, who selectively quote the interviewee in order to further their agenda of undermining Sharma. Shekhar Gupta, whose name emerged in the Augusta Westland scandal and who is currently the President of the spineless Editor’s Guild, later apologized to the Professor, however, only for referring to him as an anti-Dalit individual, and not for the other intentional distortions made in the report.
As a consequence, the Print report on the Muzzafarnagar episode and its allegations of police brutality need to be taken with a pinch of salt, because going by past experience, this report too can be a collection of distorted claims made by the reporter as certain left-leaning journalists are on to no good, as their reports containing outrageous testimonies often beg for virality, their ultimate goal. Clearly phrases like ‘rectal bleeding’ and ‘condemns Dalit upliftement’ are not mere typing mistakes but ingredients deliberated on for a viral, very viral piece that suits a political agenda.
Coming back to the Telegraph and its report about rectal bleeding which found no support even among the ‘victims’. The Telegraph had courageously reported that over a 100 students had been detained and assaulted by the police, while the Print report contradicts it by saying that not more than 35 were detained, 28 of whom were released on the same night. Abhishek Yadav, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Muzaffarnagar, told The Print: “A mob of protesters had entered the hostel on the day of the protest. When we went to catch hold of them, we ended up detaining some students as well. As soon as we were informed that they were madrasa students, we released 28 of them that very night along with the maulana (Hussaini). Four more (students) were released later,” the SSP said. When asked about the assault on children, Yadav said: “No student was beaten in police custody. The injuries took place only when the protesters started hiding behind the students and used students as cover at the madrasa.”
The lies of the Telegraph don’t see an end just yet. Contrary to the Police’s statement and the Print report, the Telegraph had claimed that Maulana Hussaini was kept in a cold dark room with no clothes for over 24 hours before being released due to ‘pressure from community leaders’. These lies were picked up by Congress mouthpiece National Herald, which also published a report stating that the minor students of Madarsa were arrested and some were allegedly tortured which led to the ‘rectal bleeding’.
Both these reports cannot be taken at face value, particularly the Telegraph’s take of the sequence of events. The Telegraph is infamous for peddling lies and not keeping the opinions of its editors restricted to its op-eds. It readily allows the opinion of its reporters to substitute facts, if at all there are any. It had last month also published a report where it was alleged that a group of police personnel raided a Muslim man’s house, looted all jewellery and money, caused a rampage and told the man that he had only two places to go to, either Pakistan or Kabristaan. The report further went on to quote the man as comparing Gandhi’s India in which he was born with the present-day India, and also how he and his family had rejected Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan (after voting in its favour, of course). Sounds familiar? Yes, that’s the same rhetoric the Indian gentry occasionally employs to further their agenda and soak Indians in guilt over supposed incidents of violence and police brutality which only occur in the heads of certain journalists. The Telegraph’s Muzaffarnagar report has no citations, quotes anonymous individuals, has no empirical evidence to validate its claims, and above all, is pure fantasy. To their credit, they have done an impeccable job at storytelling. By all counts, this is the most readily available recipe for virality. Spicing up the report with frivolous assumptions catches more eyeballs, as people are fed what they want to consume, and thus the media outlet reaps commercial benefits out of the lies it sells. The Telegraph has evidently used that same old trick in order to extricate their sinking ship.