In an extravagant report dated February 14, ThePrint went on to whitewash the crimes of five accused Islamists, who were involved in the brutal murder of Hindu activist Rinku Sharma. In its endeavour to portray the accused as innocent victims of bullish Indian state targeting minorities for crimes they did not commit, ThePrint’s report titled ‘Rinku Sharma brought knife that killed him & started the fight, claim families of accused,’ aims to suggest that it was not the murderers who brought the murder weapon along with them, but instead Rinku Sharma himself.
The report by ThePrint quotes the families of the accused as saying that it was Rinku Sharma who was the aggressor, and it was him who had brought the knife along to attack them. Based on this flamboyant and unverified claim, ThePrint published an entire sob story detailing how the families of the accused are those of social workers, and how they celebrated Hindu festivals and even ate prasad after ceremonies at Sharma’s home until recently.
Now, however, a video of the Islamist mob-assault on Rinku Sharma has been made public, and it is clearly seen that one of the accused was carrying a sharp knife-like object in his right hand, with which he most likely attacked Rinku Sharma, leading to the Hindu activist’s death.
https://twitter.com/rajshekharTOI/status/1363355453120413697?s=20
You can see Rinku Sharma bringing the Knife to the brawl, just like you always see how @ShekharGupta brings Facts & Neutrality to Journalism. pic.twitter.com/YRwbLFyrQp
— Yo Yo Funny Singh (@moronhumor) February 21, 2021
Therefore, the lies of ThePrint stand exposed, as it is clearly seen from the video now going viral on social media that Rinku Sharma was attacked with a knife that the mob carried with them. In the shoddy report published by the portal, the families of the suspected killers claim that it was Rinku Sharma who first attacked Nasruddin, and also tried to cut open the pipes of a gas cylinder. The families claimed Rinku was drunk and had become hysterical. “We didn’t try to remove the pipes from the cylinders; Rinku wanted to throw it on us and his mother was stopping him. It was Rinku who got the knife and first hurt my husband. We went to Sanjay Gandhi hospital for treatment after that and I don’t know who stabbed Rinku,” Shama, the wife of accused Nasruddin was quoted as saying by ThePrint.
Shama also claimed that the families celebrated Holi and Diwali together and even ate prasad after puja from Rinku’s family. However, with the outing of the now viral video of the mob-lynching of Rinku Sharma, ThePrint’s secular attempt of whitewashing the crimes of the Ilslamist extremists stands exposed. Shekhar Gupta must now come out in the open and apologise for the lies spread by his portal in the sensitive case.
