Journalist Barkha Dutt who had recently quit NDTV, has now decided to float her own venture in the form of “Mojo” which is touted to be a multi-media content and events company. Barkha in her own words describes the venture to be baby steps towards creative independence:
Our just-born child. A multi media content & events company. We’ll update you on our evolution as we grow.Wish us luck! With @nomansiddiqui pic.twitter.com/imeNvWE7O1
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) April 15, 2017
In the venture Barkha choose to tag a person called Noman Siddiqui. While it is generally advisable to go in with a partner while launching a startup Barkha’s choice in this case, this move might end up haunting the venture, even before it has actually begun.
Noman as it turns out is not a fan of Narendra Modi. While it is perfectly all right to not like someone, social media users found out that Noman apparently harbors such a pathological hatred against Modi that he wanted him to be hanged. He had expressed his wish in a tweet which (among others) was dug out by Twitter user CrimeMasterV2.
In 2013 when terrorist Afzal Guru was hanged for his crimes, Noman had shared an article which took pains to whitewash Afzal Guru. Noman in his tweet put out a statement about Afzal caring for universal brotherhood which he (Noman) claimed Modi too did. Hence according to that logic he proceeded to ask as to why Modi shouldn’t also be hanged.
Noman as it turns out had also once equated Modi a democratically elected leader with crazed dictator Muammur Gaddafi:
Even after such grave allegations, Barkha tried to tone down the matter and proceeded to mock CrimeMasterV2:
@CrimeMasterV2 you must have a lot of time to go through articles & tweets from four years ago. However am sure thats not what he meant or would say at all
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) April 16, 2017
Even though Noman had clearly tweeted his thoughts Barkha claimed that he hadn’t actually meant that:
@CrimeMasterV2 I have now repeated four times that I am sure that is not what he meant- but i certainly dont delve into years of tweets like you do?
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) April 16, 2017
Barkha’s claim that she didn’t delve into the past was also busted when CrimeMaster proceeded to point out how she had chosen to write a whole article based on Yogi Adityanath’s alleged past utterances:
@BDUTT @ekvichar_ Hypocrisy alert!! Barkha wrote an entire article about Yogi’s past utterances but preaches others not to look into his partner’s past!! pic.twitter.com/6nMKeXuf3B
— Ishant Sharma (@CrimeMasterV2) April 16, 2017
After all the outrage, Noman seems to have deactivated his account, maybe because he wanted to stop further skeletons from tumbling out of the closet?
UPDATE: Noman came back to Twitter, apologized for his earlier tweets, while Barkha Dutt clarified that he was not technically a business partner but a team member in her new venture. However, she had no answer to this:
@BDUTT @nomansiddiqui Ur comrade in arms apologised now not 5 years back after I exposed his hatred.To quote Barkha “apology is worthless.Language shd be exposed” pic.twitter.com/riCwW63oXW
— Ishant Sharma (@CrimeMasterV2) April 17, 2017
This isn’t the only time, Barkha’s startups have been in the news for the wrong reasons. Reportedly at the beginning of 2016, Shekhar Gupta and Barkha Dutt had announced their intention to launch a news media startup called The Print. Even though it was pegged as a joint venture, Barkha’s role in the same was questionable after her name was removed as Co-Founder from The Print’s twitter account. It is also believed that The Print turned out to be a nonstarter.
Let’s hope this new venture goes beyond Modi hate and doesn’t end up being a dud like the last one.
Update 2: The article has been updated to reflect the fact that Noman Siddiqui was not Barkha Dutt’s partner in venture.
