Even as the rampaging mob of protesters carrying out the tractor rally are creating mayhem on the streets of Delhi, NDTV has sought to condone their violent tendencies by attempting to project them as considerate and compassionate towards the sufferings of others.
An ambulance was snarled up in the traffic caused by the tractor rally in the national capital. But NDTV twisted the news to allege that ‘farmers’ made way for the ambulance stuck in the commotion.
“Farmers make way for ambulance stuck in #tractorrally,” the official Twitter account of NDTV tweeted along with the video of an ambulance passing through a road occupied by the demonstrators.
Farmers make way for ambulance stuck in #tractorrally
— NDTV (@ndtv) January 26, 2021
(📍: Indraprastha Park on Outer Ring Road, east Delhi) pic.twitter.com/m127NXFia1
Protesters resort to violence, vandalism and destruction amidst Tractor Rally
Thousands of farmers breached barricades and proceeded towards Delhi amid huge police presence as they kicked off their tractor rally on Republic Day. Chaos was unleashed on the streets leading to the national capital as farmers flouted the designated route and marched towards the Parliament and Red Fort.
The participants of the tractor rally also resorted to vandalism as they ran amok on the highways, attacking the trucks and breaking the barricades that were put up by the Delhi police to control their route. As disorder swept over the city’s borders, protesters were baton-charged and tear-gassed by the policemen on duty.
The upheaval was primarily caused after the protesters who were allowed to hold the “Kisaan Parade” between 12 to 5 PM, started the march much before the allotted time and veered away from the agreed-upon routes. The security personnel had tried in vain to convince the farmers to stick to the plan of holding the tractor parade after the conclusion of the Republic Day parade at Rajpath. But, their requests fell on deaf ears as the protesters ran riot, breaking barricades and vandalising vehicles on their way.
The rampant violence was the leitmotif of the Kisaan Parade that was carried out on Republic Day by the protesters opposing the newly introduced Farm Laws. But the tweet posted by NDTV, in essence, was a shoddy attempt by the media organization to discredit the reports of violence, vandalism, and stone-pelting that were witnessed in the wake of the tractor rally.
However, whitewashing crimes of riotous mobs is par for the course for NDTV. On several occasions in the past, the media organisation has demonstrated eager willingness to pull the veil over unlawful acts if they are committed by mobs that are aligned to its ideology.
NDTV edits out visuals of a Mosque with a huge pile of stones from drone footage
In the wake of gruesome Delhi riots in February 2020, a drone video of the riot-stricken region was shared in which one could see heaps of stones stored on the terrace of a mosque. Not only mosques but large heaps of stones were stored on the terraces of various residences, which were clearly visible in the video, indicating that the Muslim mobs had planned ahead for the violence.
However, left-wing portal NDTV – which has a history of absolving even Islamic terrorists from their crimes, resorted to rescue Muslim mobs by watering down the crime by carefully editing the mosque out of the drone video.
In a report titled, ‘Drones Monitoring Situation In Violence-Hit Delhi Areas’, NDTV cropped images of the mosque to mislead the readers on the real nature of the anti-Hindu riots and tried to hide the images where it can be clearly seen that the local mosques had stored stones to attack the Hindus during the communal riots. In the report, the featured image was credited to ANI, but the Mosque was missing.
