In recent times, a flurry ‘hate crimes’ are being reported by the mainstream media to peddle the narratives of ‘minorities under attack’ and ‘right-wing intolerance’. After the BJP registered a thumping victory in the 2019 General Elections, efforts towards that end only appear to have been accelerated.
Only today, the narrative around one such alleged ‘hate crime‘ was busted. The Police revealed that it was a brawl involving drunk men whole denying that the skull cap of the alleged victim was forcibly removed as claimed. The alleged victim’s complaint, too, did not mention the perpetrators chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’.
Before the day was over yet, another such incident has come to light. This one involves an alleged attack on a doctor by youths chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. The Hindu reported, “Eminent Pune doctor accosted by gang in New Delhi, asked his religion, forced to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’”. However, now it has come to light that the matter was confided in a friend and not even reported to the Police.
“He [Dr. Gadre] was staying at the YMCA near Jantar Mantar as he was due to deliver a lecture organized by Indian Medical Association at Bijnor the next day. When he left for his morning stroll, he was accosted by a gang of five-six youth near the Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place. They surrounded him, asked him what religion he was and finally demanded that he chant ‘Jai Shri Ram,” said Anant Bagaitkar, a senior journalist, to whom the alleged victim, Dr. Arun Gadre, narrated the event as per the report on The Hindu.
“On 26 May, I was taking a morning walk in Delhi at around 6 a.m. near the YMCA. Suddenly, few youths [confronted me] and asked me to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’. I was a little taken aback and said it. They insisted I say it loudly. I just walked away and they let me. I was not physically manhandled…I did not want to make it public nor report it to the police because I thought it to be trivial…I request everyone to treat it as trivial and not draw any conclusion,” Dr. Gadre is reported to have said when asked about the incident.
On the face of it, there’s no evidence to back up the claims at all. If at all such a thing happened, the doctor thought it was so trivial that it wasn’t worthy of reporting to the Police. Moreover, the source of the report is not even primary, as The Hindu says that the doctor had narrated the incident to a journalist, from where it reached the newspaper. It is not sure whether The Hindu talked to the doctor to verify whether the incident occurred at all. Under such circumstances, it appears a very deliberate ploy to peddle a pre-decided agenda.
Journalists are expected to do some manner of verification before publishing a report. Here, quite clearly, the journalist has taken the doctor’s words as gospel truth without any evidence whatsoever. Moreover, the headline shows that the larger objective is to peddle a malicious agenda while failing to make it clear that the doctor himself believed the matter to be trivial. He was not touched physically at all as he says himself.
As we have said earlier, there’s a dedicated agenda behind the efforts to keep the communal pot boiling. It appears going forward, we can expect a wave of invented mythical hate crimes.
