When it became increasingly difficult to defend the rabid Islamist organisation Tablighi Jamaat for its horrendous role of brazenly defying lockdown restrictions and providing a propitious environment for the Wuhan coronavirus to proliferate, ‘journalist’ Saba Naqvi, long known for bringing disgrace to the profession of journalism and harbouring pathological hatred for Hindus, today shared a video to implicate Hindus of breaching lockdown restrictions.
In a bid to draw an equivalence between the Tablighi Jamaat violators who defied the restrictions and congregated at the Markaz Nizamuddin, effectively turning it into a hotspot of coronavirus outbreak in the country, with pious Hindu devotees, Saba Naqvi shared a video of outsize Hindu devotees thronging temples to assert that Hindus have also disobeyed the strictures imposed by the government, implying that they have also partaken in disseminating Coronavirus across the country.
Worrying. Disturbing..no social distancing. pic.twitter.com/anNCcsG6ps
— Saba Naqvi (@_sabanaqvi) April 3, 2020
“Worrying. Disturbing..no social distancing,” Saba Naqvi tweeted while sharing a video of a news report which shows a raft of Hindu devotees visiting various temples and dismissing the threat of coronavirus in their neighbourhoods.
However, while Ms Naqvi endeavoured to mitigate the enormity of the crime perpetrated by Tablighi Jamaat members, she shared an old video of Hindu devotees visiting their temples when social distancing was not a catchphrase and lockdown restrictions were unheard of. The video that Ms Naqvi shared is from March 18, 2020, 4 days before the ‘Janata Curfew’ took place and one day before when the Prime Minister Modi called upon the citizens of the country to observe ‘Janta Curfew’ on March 22, 2020 in the wake of country’s fight against the novel coronavirus.
Here’s the entire news report from March 18, 2020, whose snippet is shared by Ms Naqvi to allege that Hindu devotees contravened the lockdown orders:-
When the Hindu devotees in Ayodhya visited temples in droves, there were no restraining orders from the state government or the central government limiting the mass gathering of people or prohibiting them from congregating at their religious places. However, Ms Naqvi, through her tweet, deviously alluded to draw a parallel between the Hindu devotees who visited the temples on March 18 and the Tablighi Jamaat holdouts who flagrantly violated the central government and organised a congregation at Markaz Nizamuddin between March 21 to March 27.
Last week, the role of Tablighi Jamaat in the spreading of the Wuhan Coronavirus across numerous states of India had come to light when 10 people who had attended the congregation at Markaz Nizamuddin died of COVID-19. Muslim clerics of Tablighi Jamaat organised a congregation in violation of the government’s lockdown orders, providing a conducive environment for the novel coronavirus to proliferate.
As per conservative estimates, the congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat was attended by more than 2000 people, both from various parts of the country as well as from abroad. Out of India’s 2500 odd cases, 647 have been linked to the congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat, a staggering 28 per cent of the total cases. The investigative agencies are scrambling to identify other attendees who they believe may have contracted the virus due to the unhygienic and unhealthy sanitation at the Jamaat premises.
Tablighi Jamaat members who were transported to quarantine centres were found spitting on the Delhi roads. In fact, they also threw tantrums, made unreasonable food demands and spitted out on doctors and other healthcare professionals who were attending them at the quarantine facilities. The crass Tablighi Jamaat members held in Ghaziabad hospital roamed naked in the ward, and made lewd gestures toward the female staff.
However, in order to deflect attention from the reprehensible behaviour of the Tablighi Jamaat members and their indubitable criminality in spreading the virus across the country, Ms Naqvi, perhaps, thought that by sharing a video that showcased violations committed by Hindus, even if that video was from the period before the lockdown kicked in, she could extenuate the culpability of Tablighi Jamaat as the organisation is facing a growing criticism for its inherently subversive conduct.
It is pertinent to note that this is not the first time that Ms Naqvi has indulged in sharing fake or irrelevant news suitable to her propaganda. Ms Naqvi has a long and chequered history of sharing fake news brimming with Hinduphobia. Last year, Saba shared a fake report published by the dubious website Caravan, which alleged that a Muslim driver was tied up and cruelly beaten up for refusing to chant “Jai Shri Ram”. When it was established that the report is fake, Saba unabashedly tweeted a conditional apology, requesting the Caravan and Altnews, two notorious websites that are known for peddling fake news, to fact check the matter.
In 2018, she had shared old fake news from 2015 where she asserted that a Dalit man was murdered for entering a temple in Uttar Pradesh. The news, firstly, was from 2015 when Akhilesh Yadav was Chief Minister. Secondly, the man was murdered by a drunk and not because he entered the temple. However, this did not deter Saba from exploiting the caste fault-lines by trying to pit Dalits against Hindus.
Today, when the nation is facing an existential crisis due to coronavirus outbreak, which threatens to overwhelm the country, largely because of the malevolent tendencies exhibited by the members of Tablighi Jamaat, instead of condemning the Islamist organisation and denouncing their practices, Ms Naqvi is more concerned about secularising the culpability of those responsible for the inexorable spread of the virus in the country. It is to this end, that Ms Naqvi shared an old video of Hindu congregation, alleging them of breaching the lockdown restrictions, and downplaying the blatant criminality of the Tablighi Jamaat members.
