The Supreme Court which went through the fresh report submitted by the Juvenile Justice Committee (JJC) from the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, over the alleged detention of children in Jammu and Kashmir post the abrogation of Article 370 in the Valley, has today reiterated that there seems to be misinformation being spread on this issue and concluded that no minor has been detained.
The Supreme Court after going through the report submitted by the four J&K High Court judges,said that it seems misinformation is being spread and that no minor is being detained. https://t.co/BEqU4JRsA1
— ANI (@ANI) December 13, 2019
The SC’s observation came after the JJC, comprising of HC judges Ali Mohammad Magrey, Dhiraj Singh Thakur, Sanjeev Kumar and Rashid Ali Dar, in its fresh report submitted, stuck to its earlier findings which had found no basis on the claims made by many Leftist media portals claiming that 144 minor boys were ‘arrested’ in Jammu and Kashmir since August 5.
In its fresh report, the JJC rehashed that the allegations raised then by many such media outlets in India and abroad were wrong. The SC has disposed of a petition by activists Eenakshi Ganguly and Shanta Sinha that had claimed that children are being detained illegally in the valley by law enforcement agencies.
The apex court bench of Justices N.V. Ramana, R. Subhash Reddy and Bhushan Gavai had on November 6 directed the juvenile justice committee of Jammu and Kashmir High Court to again verify allegations of illegal detentions of hundreds of children as the earlier report of the panel giving a clean chit to the government had merely relied on police information.
The JJC had, in the October report, submitted that they had visited juvenile homes and examined all available records to ascertain such claims of ‘minors being detained illegally’ featuring frequently in media portals.
The SC had earlier asked the JJC to investigate the matter, following petitions submitted by Child rights activists’ Eenakshi Ganguly and Shanta Sinha.
Interestingly, the ‘activists’ had then based their petition, not on actual complains but on reports by news portals such as The Quint, The Scroll, Caravan and Washington Post.
Shockingly, even after being called out for their malicious reportage in the month of October, news portals like ‘The Wire’, continued to further these false claims. In one of its article headlined ‘Beaten, Heckled, Made Examples of’: Detained Kashmiri Minors Speak Out’, published on December 3, 2019, The Wire continued to create a false narrative to mislead the public and create an environment of fear-based on nothing, sticking to the lies perpetrated by Pakistan over the Kashmir issue.
Pakistan’s fake news machinery which has always been pushing their anti-India agenda by spreading ‘fake news’, using such articles published by these leftist media outlets, this time too was quick to pick up this malicious report by The Wire to malign India’s reputation. Pakistan’s oldest, leading and most widely read English-language newspaper, ‘The Dawn’ picked up the fabricated report and published it in its newspaper on December 5, 2019.
However, the fact remains that the Juvenile Justice Committee had, before submitting its October report, individually examined each of the detention cases and had concluded that except two, all boys were released on the same day.
The report had specified that they “have not received a single complaint or representation or anything like that from any individual, lawyer, human rights activists, group persons, organisations, civil society members or any other person complaining about the arrest of any juvenile.”
The detailed report has included data not only from police stations but also from juvenile homes in the state.
While investigating the allegation in October, the JJC had demolished the claims made by portals like The Quint, The Scroll, Caravan and Washington Post. The JJC has also cited individuals claims by these media houses to demonstrate how they had created a false narrative to mislead the public.
While calling one such report published by ‘The Quint’ as ‘fictional imagination’, JJC report cited The Scroll’s report and stated that it defies ‘common sense’ and it only aims to paint the security forces as ‘predators on the prowl’.
Also, the August 30 report by Washington Post on Kashmir was called ‘wrong reporting’ by the JJC as no specifics of the alleged incidents were provided. The report was widely shared by Indian opposition politicians and ‘left-liberals’ to allege human rights violations in Kashmir and detention of children by security forces.
The J and K police’s report to the JJC had also asked how foreign publications and digital media portals have ‘reported’ incidents that were nowhere to be found on local media and have no evidentiary value.
It is notable here that since the government abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, leftist media and their patrons have been on a misinformation overdrive. Several false claims and lies are being peddled. From medicine shortage to imaginary stories of torture and extreme violence, some media portals seem to be peddling the lines perpetrated by Pakistan over the Kashmir issue.
