An alleged ‘anti-rape activist’ Yogita Bhayana on Friday resorted to putting out fake news and attempted to politicise sensitive issues such as women safety in the country. Taking to Twitter, Yogita Bhayana shared a Hindi news report that claimed that a squash player from Switzerland Ambre Allinckx had refused to visit India over concerns about rapes and women safety in the country.
Posting a news report published by NBT in 2018, Yogita Bhayana took potshots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly failing to provide security for women in the country.
“Thanks for making us Global power Narendra Modi,” she said by tweeting an article concerning a Swiss player deciding not to visit India allegedly over issues of women safety.
Tweeting on the 9th of October, Yogita attempted to show that the country had become so unsafe for women under the Narendra Modi reign that internationally, women did not want to consider travelling to India because of it. The only problem is, that Yogita seemed to further her narrative with fake news.
Parents of the Swiss Squash players reject ‘safety concerns’ theory
As it turns out, the 2018 report that shared by Yogita Bhayana claimed that the Swiss squash player Ambre Allinckx “pulled out” from the 2018 WSF-World Junior Squash Championship in Chennai out of safety concerns. However, at the time, the parents of Switzerland squash player Ambre Allinckx had clarified they had no problems whatsoever regarding safety in India contrary to reports published in the Indian media.
Slamming the fallacious reports by the media, Ambre’s parents had gone on to the extent of terming the news report as a “lie or a journalistic invention”.
“We, as parent, never were concerned about safety in India. This is a lie or a journalist invention. We wanted to have summer holidays as a family and due to the father (Igor) work this has to take place in July. So nothing in our decision was about safety,” Igor and Valerie, the parents of Swiss player had clarified in a message to squashsite.co.uk, a leading squash website.
“Ambre Allinckx couldn’t make it because her parents did not want her to make the trip,” Swiss coach Pascal Bhurin had been clarified in 2018 itself.
There were several reports in 2018 itself that punctured the fictitious claims made by the newspaper clipping that is now being shared by the likes of Yogita Bhayana.
Despite the fact that one cursory attempt at finding the truth would lead Bhayana to the several reports that had clarified that the Swiss player had personal reasons to skip the tournament in 2018, Yogita Bhayana instead put out fake news to further her usual false narrative to depict that the women were unsafe under Modi regime.
No retraction, no apology
Interestingly, the fact that the aim of sharing that fallacious piece of news was simply to further a pre-set agenda becomes evident when one realises that despite being corrected by several social media users, Yogita Bhayana has still not retracted her tweet, issued a clarification or an apology.
Several people took to Twitter to inform her that she was sharing fake news, however, Yogita does not seem moved by it.
That's a fake news from 2018. Her parents had clarified that no such safety concern as reported by India Leftist Media. Dont defame your country just because you hate Modi. pic.twitter.com/FBt0KtJTci
— Shash (@BefittingFacts) October 9, 2020
This was merely a continuation of the narrative since the Hathras incident. Though the incident is mired in controversy and contradictions, several individuals have used the case to build a narrative that India is no longer safe for women and the problem has been made worse after PM Narendra Modi started leading the nation.
