Zee Media’s production head Nasir Azmi on Sunday took to social media to claim that he has resigned in solidarity with students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University. He said that Zee News has “failed” on matters of covering JNU, Kanhaiya Kumar, Aligarh Muslim University and recently Jamia Millia Islamia.
He also tweeted the same.
Left Zee Media?
Dear Students of Jamia
Zee News failed on whether it is the matter of JNU, Kanhaiya, AMU and Jamia Millia incident. Channel has tried to mis lead the Nation especially on Jamia where students were beaten brutally after CAA act and upcoming NRC.— Nasir Azmi (@nasirazmi) December 22, 2019
And then to get some validation, he tagged political parties and politicians to inform them about his step so he could get some retweets or acknowledgement.
— Nasir Azmi (@nasirazmi) December 22, 2019
— Nasir Azmi (@nasirazmi) December 22, 2019
However, the truth seems far from reality.
Sources in the know tell OpIndia that Azmi was already put up on Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for one month as his performance was not up to the mark. As per the document shared above, his PIP was effective from 4th December, 2019 to 4th January 2020.
On 22nd December when he quit stating ‘solidarity’ with Jamia students and others protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act, one can see it was in middle of the PIP where his performance was being monitored as it was below average. The letter further stated that if his performance does not improve, this PIP letter would be considered one month’s notice period. Effectively, if he does not perform better, he would be asked to leave on 4th January 2020.
Amit Kumar Singh, Senior Producer, Zee News, took to Facebook to call out Azmi’s lies.
Singh said not only is Azmi trying to mislead Jamia students but also lying in the name of Islam. He said while everyone has a right to leave their jobs for better career prospects, the problem here is that he is taking this opportunity to portray himself as a martyr.
He further asked him if it was his conscience making him quit Zee News, why did he not quit when in 2016 they covered the JNU incident. In 2016, Communist Party of India politician Kanhaiya Kumar, who was a student leader back then, Umar Khalid, son of member of banned Islamist group SIMI and one Anirban Bhattacharya were accused of raising anti-India slogans to celebrate Parliament Attack convicted terrorist Afzal Guru’s birthday.
