Update: An investigation by Bihar DGP says that there is no communal angle in Rohit Jaiswal’s death. The victim’s father has changed his statements quite a few times. The father had alleged that his son was sacrificed to make the mosque powerful by Muslims, which police investigation has found untrue. Eventually, father has also disowned the allegations.
On Saturday, Islamic propaganda site masquerading as factchecker Alt News published an article accusing OpIndia of spreading lie. Referring to the reports on OpIndia covering the gruesome murder of a minor Hindu boy in Bihar, Alt News alleged that OpIndia invented an allegation that the boy Rohit Jaiswal was murdered as a sacrifice by some Muslim people to make their mosque stronger.
Doing a fact check, the propaganda site concluded that OpIndia had published fake news regarding the murder case, as the FIR registered in the case does not mention about the mosque angle. Even after they say that OpIndia reports had quoted the father of the victim, they still went ahead to allege that the report was incorrect. ‘From where and how OpIndia created this story, only themselves can answer this’, they wrote.
If Alt News had read the OpIndia reports carefully, they would have found the answer to their question in those reports. OpIndia didn’t invent the allegation that Rohit Jaiswal was murdered at a mosque, probably as a sacrifice for the mosque. The reports had merely quoted Rajesh Jaiswal, the father of the boy, who had levelled this allegation. The allegation was made by the father of the boy, and OpIndia report had merely quoted him. When OpIndia had spoken to Rajesh Jaiswal over the phone on May 9, he had alleged that his son was killed in a newly constructed mosque as a sacrifice.
But later when some media reports said that he has made a u-turn now and withdrawn his allegation on the sacrifice, OpIndia had again called him on 14th May, when he had said that his earlier statement was not confirmed, but he had said that on the basis of a suspicion. He didn’t deny that earlier he had made the allegation. Moreover, he did reiterate that the maulvis in the mosque used to sprinkle water on his son, raising the suspicion that they were trying to do something with him.
The Alt News report also quotes the post mortem report to claim that Rohit died due to drowning, there is no mention of any serious injury in the report. Thus, they are claiming that not only OpIndia, but also the grieving parents of a brutally murdered son is lying. They are also conveniently totally ignoring the other angle of the case, which the alleged police inaction and brutality on the parents.
Rajesh Jaiswal had himself alleged that Kateya SHO had admitted to him that he had got the autopsy report changed. The police officer Ashwini Tiwari had refused to register the case and misbehaved with the parents, a fact recorded on video. According to Rajesh, Tiwari threw an open challenge in front of the bereaved family that they could apply all their resources if they want but they would not be able to do him any harm. Rajesh claimed that he kept receiving constant threats from the accused, but did not receive any help from the police or the administration.
In fact, Rohit’s father had already refuted the claim that Rohit died because of drowning. Showing the photographs of his dead son, he had asked, ‘does this photo look like he died of drowning? Has the boy drank even a little water?’ Rajesh had alleged that the police had taken money from the killers and made a false report on the death. The photographs of the deceased indeed do not suggest that the boy had died of drowning.
It may be noted that the SHO of Kateya police station Ashwni Tiwari has been suspended after Bihar DGP visited the place to take stock of the situation. This suggests that there is truth in the allegation of the father that Tiwari misbehaved with them, and probably fabricated the autopsy report.
Therefore, to rely on such a questionable report to allege that the father of the deceased boy is lying and he was not murdered is very unfortunate, that too for someone which claims to be fact-checker. It is Rajesh Jaiswal who had made the mosque sacrifice allegation, who said that his father didn’t die of drowning, and that police had tried to bury the case by fabricating evidence. But in an attempt to malign OpIndia, Alt News didn’t hesitate to label the grieving the father as a liar.
In another laughable to attempt to shield the accused in the case, Alt News also tried to suggest that the practice of sacrifice does not exist in Islam. Quoting one Islamic scholar, they wrote that there is no tradition to sacrifice animal to anyone except Allah, there is no provision of human sacrifice. This is laughable, because the father didn’t say that his son was sacrifice for some other Muslim god, he said his son was sacrificed for mosque, which is nothing but a place of worship to Allah. Every religious activity in a mosque is done in the name of Allah, as Muslims as not allowed to worship anything else. Therefore, if the boy was indeed sacrificed, it would be for Allah only.
The claim that Islam does not have provision for human sacrifice also does not matter here, as no major religion actually allow human sacrifice in the current era. Whatever such sacrifices are done, they are done individually. Moreover, although the animal sacrifice was common in Hinduism, it has almost disappeared baring few temples in eastern India. But widespread animal sacrifice in Islam still continues as the Eid al-Adha or Eid Qurban, also known as Bakrid, where millions of animals like cow, goat, camel etc are sacrificed every year all across the world. Therefore, it is possible that some superstitious people in Islam may also believe in human sacrifice.
In conclusion, it is a fact that the father of the boy had initially made the allegations of sacrificing his son for the mosque, OpIndia didn’t invent it like Alt News was alleging. Plus, the FIR and the autopsy report in this case are not dependable at present as the father has claimed that the police officer had fabricated them, and the police officer has been suspended after that, suggesting that there is some merit in the allegations of Rajesh Jaiswal.
Alt News themselves said that only OpIndia can answer about the questions they are raising, but they didn’t bother to contact OpIndia to know the answers before publishing the report in attempt to slander OpIndia, but in the process, they ended up slandering Rajesh Jaiswal.
Update: An investigation by Bihar DGP says that there is no communal angle in Rohit Jaiswal’s death. The victim’s father has changed his statements quite a few times. The father had alleged that his son was sacrificed to make the mosque powerful by Muslims, which police investigation has found untrue. Eventually, father has also disowned the allegations.
