The New York Post had recently published a pathbreaking and consequential report, which had the potential of doing journalism proud. In its original report, the New York Post claimed that an Indian’s priest’s penis was chopped off by his wife. “Third time was definitely no charm for this polyamorous priest,” The report added, “The holy man in India wanted to get married a third time, but his second wife sliced off his penis as he slept after he ignored her pleas from getting hitched again.” The thumbnail of the said report by New York Post showed a Hindu priest holding a diya on the banks of a water body.
The New York Post caters to Americans. Of course, its readers would have thought that a Hindu just got castrated by his wife, and died subsequently, for wanting to marry a third woman. However, the ‘priest’ who got castrated by his wife was not a priest, to begin with, and he was definitely not a Hindu. The said incident took place in the Shikarpur village of Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh, and the deceased man in question here was, in fact, a Maulavi called Vakil Ahmed.
Look at the name in the report and the feature image used https://t.co/U3Ysi1VhWz pic.twitter.com/qlmkLDfcp9
— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) June 28, 2021
New York Post deleted the tweet and updated its report after social media furore. The publication was caught misrepresenting and distorting the facts of the case, and trying to project the polygamy enthusiast as a Hindu, when in fact, he was a Muslim cleric. NYP ultimately fixed the featured image and replaced it with a stock image of a police van.
The accused was identified as one Hazra, the Maulavi’s first wife. Hazra informed the police that Ahmed wanted to marry for a third time while she had been planning to get her unmarried daughter married first. According to her, the deceased Maulavi was more interested in getting married for a third time himself rather than ensuring the marriage of his daughter. This infuriated Hazra, who chopped off her husband’s private parts while he was sleeping – leading to his death.
The media, both national as well as international, have a history of turning Muslim criminals into Hindu ones. While Indian media has more or less abandoned this practice due to increased vigilance, international media continues to defame Hindus for the crimes of Muslims. The New York Post comes as the latest entrant in a long list of publications and organisations prying for opportunities to defame Hindus internationally.