The Supreme Court is hearing cases related to the so-called communication shut-down in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. During the hearing, a report by OpIndia was cited in the Supreme Court to debunk the lies of India Spend.
During the arguments, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta brought up the issue of allegations that people of Kashmir are not being able to access healthcare in the state.
Mehta: We are alive to the problems and we have dealt with the problems. The common man is not suffering
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) November 21, 2019
Tushar Mehta said that the government has put a scheme (Ayushyaman Bharat) in place where the cashless facility for availing healthcare can be taken benefit of. A total number of cases under this scheme from Aug 5 till date 11468 cases on the transaction management system.
Further, Tushar Mehta spoke of an IndiaSpend report that had made the allegations that several people in Kashmir were not being able to access healthcare. Tushar Mehta then went on to cite the OpIndia report which debunked the lies being spread by IndiaSpend.
Mehta: The website IndiaSpend was caught spreading misinformation.
Mehta places reliance on a report by OpIndia to make this submission.@OpIndia_com @IndiaSpend
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) November 21, 2019
The OpIndia report that Solicitor General was referring to in the Supreme Court was an article which debunked the lies spread by IndiaSpend and The Wire after the abrogation of Article 370. In the article, IndiaSpend had twisted data and laced it with lies to claim that mental health issues were on the rise in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370.
In a section with the subheading, “Patients reluctant, unable to access healthcare”, Wire quotes fake news IndiaSpend to say that patients have not been able to access healthcare since August 5th 2019 so as to give the impression that even though Kashmiris are facing mental health issues due to the abrogation, they are not being able to get themselves treated. However, they follow it up in the same section by stating “Even in a normal situation, few people access mental healthcare, in particular”. In that case, how did The Wire and India Spend manage to tie it to the abrogation of Article 370 is a mystery yet to be solved.
The article went on to say that after the abrogation of Article 370 in August, 44.5% fewer patients visited IMHANS compared to July. However, they also say that this data is inconclusive as the number of patients was even lower in May. However, interestingly, the highest mental health issues reported in Kashmir was in July, a month before the abrogation of Article 370. The lowest was in May.
The entire article essentially had tried to confuse the readers to insinuate that firstly, patients are unable to access healthcare facilities and secondly, that due to that, mental health issues are on the rise post abrogation of article 370. OpIndia had shown that both these claims per that article were fallacious.
IndiaSpend is a habitual offender. It was responsible for furthering the highly dubious hate crime watch database that has now shut shop. With their bigoted agenda and dubious track record, the IndiaSpend Factchecker.in had all along attempted to push Hinduphobic propaganda by selectively reporting crimes in which accused were allegedly Hindus and referred to it as a ‘Hate crime’ while deliberately ignoring those crimes committed in which perpetrators were Muslims and the victims were Hindus.
The ‘Hate Crime Watch’ initiative of the Factchecker.in, which began as a supposed tracking tool of hate crimes across the country, soon began to manifest its true colours by not only limiting its reporting to Hinduphobic content but also whitewashing crimes committed by Muslims against the Hindus. In fact, there have been instances where IndiaSpend’s ‘factchecker’ journalist was caught trying to manipulate a minor Dalit victim from Begusarai who, along with his family, was attacked by local Muslim goons, trying to force them to sell their home to prove that there was no ‘hate crime’.
In an attempt to justify their statement of not treating a terror attack – where the terrorist himself declared that it was a religious war against infidels – as a religious hate crime, FactChecker compared the terrorist attack with alleged attacks on Kashmiris in some parts of India after the Pulwama terror attack. They claimed that they have not included such attacks either as ‘hate crime’ as it doesn’t fit into their ‘motivated by religious identity’ criteria, because such attacks appear motivated by regional identities of the victims, not religious.
Note: Full details of the proceedings are awaited and this reported will be updated if new information comes to light
