Indian Express has been the beacon of baseless stories in the past few months. While some of them could be plain idiocy, some could be termed malicious in their intent. They started 2015 with the dubious Terror Boat article by Praveen Swami which was eventually thrashed by all and sundry. Then they decided to communalise even a gang Rape, and twisted the Archbishop’s statements. Then came the Julio Ribeiro letter, which by his own admission was exaggerated, and whose claims were later found to be unsubstantiated. They also refused to publish this reply to the same letter. And then they claimed BJP is replacing Newton in school textbooks, only to publish the true interview a few days later which rubbished their claims.
Today, Indian Express went one step ahead and tried to pass off a Facebook post by a page called “Unofficial Dr Subramaniam Swamy” as a quote by BJP leader Subrmaniam Swamy. Express alleged that Swamy had blasted the recent film “Dharam Sankat Mein” which also stars BJP MP Paresh Rawal. Express Quoted Swamy as having written the following:
Look at these Hindu gurus. Always cunning perverts. Lusting after wealth, women and whiskey. We have been telling the same story for decades and will continue to do, in the name of freedom of expression. Also disappointing is the fact that these movies prominently feature an actor who happens to be a BJP MP.
Its funny and sad that a behemoth of MSM fell prey to a page which clearly says it is the “Unofficial” Dr Swamy page. In fact, in the details, this Facebook page says it is run by another Facebook Page called “Shankhnaad”. There is no involcement of Dr Swamy in either of these pages. Are Indian Express journalists so foolish or are they deliberately playing mischief. It could have been a gamble, hoping Dr Swamy would not rebut or would ignore and this propaganda would spread. But they messed with the wrong guy. Dr Swamy immediately tweeted this:
I have asked my brilliant legal counsel associate Ishkaran Bhandari to send Indian Exp a notice for concocting my statement on Paras Rawal.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) April 13, 2015
And within 5 hours, Indian Express removed the story, with an apology:
We have removed a story on Paresh Rawal attributed to @Swamy39 as the source of the report could not be verified later on.
— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) April 14, 2015
We have a screenshot of the story stored for posterity.
Next, Indian Express decided to communalise schools. This tweet was tweeted from their Official Handle:
In this Gujarat school, saffron uniform for Hindu kids, green for Muslim http://t.co/5PbiChpmEdpic.twitter.com/BMyZiYcTw1
— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) April 14, 2015
The title of this story reads: “Divided colours of Ahmedabad: Saffron uniform for Hindu kids, green for Muslim“. From these two lines, an ordinary reader would assume religious segregation is going on in a school in Gujarat where Hindu students wear saffron colour clothes, and muslim students from the same school wear green colour clothes. But Alas, Indian Express was lying again.
The first 3 sentences itself of this report make it clear that Indian Express lied both in its tweet and in its headline:
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s Shahpur Public School and Dani Limda Public School are unique for being its only English-medium schools. They also have another distinction. While the uniform at Shahpur school where most of the students are Hindus is saffron-coloured, the Dani Limda school where almost all the students are Muslims has a green uniform.
From the above it is clear that there are 2 schools with 2 different colour uniforms. This is the first lie, where they initially claim in 1 school, 2 uniforms for 2 religions are used. The second part of this lie is that Hindus are made to wear saffron and Muslims are made to wear green. By their own admission, in the Shahpur school, a majority of the students are Hindus which means, it has some Muslim children. The same applies for the other school, where a small number of Hindu children might be present. So in Shahpur, even Muslim students are wearing saffron uniforms, whereas in the other schools, even Hindu children are wearing green uniforms. So where is the religious segregation?
Indian Express later claims these schools are located in Hindu majority and Muslim majority regions respectively and hence the colours of the uniforms. This inference could also be challenged since it is pertinent to note that these are the only 2 English Medium schools. All other 454 schools run by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation are non-English Medium and have the same blue and white uniform. IF indeed, there was some religious segregation based on regions, why don’t these 454 schools have uniform colours based on their locality or student religions? Or are we to believe all these 454 schools are located in areas which have perfect equitable balance of all religions?
Indian Express seems to be desperate to find stories where there are none. In fact, many MSM journalists are now doing the same, and unfortunately on highly trivial issues, as we wrote here.
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