It is as predictable as ABC.
18 months since 25-year-old Delhi anti-Hindu riots accused Shahrukh Pathan wearing red-shirt and blue jeans brandished a gun at the police and threatened them, The Quint has published a white paper on him watering down his crime and making him appear like a cherubic saint.
The Quint starts with describing his menacing march as ‘brazen confidence in his gait’. Then the writer of the ‘Shahrukh Pathan fanpage’ romanticised his criminal act. “Unfazed by the policemen in riot gear, he shot bullets in the air while media persons captured his acts in astonishment. The fact that the gym enthusiast, who was also a local, did not wear a mask to hide his identity, made his ‘bravado’ seem peculiar and odd,” she writes.
This is not a satire. I had to read it twice over to make sure I was not missing the satire. The Quint fangirls on Shahrukh Pathan for being ‘unfazed’ by Delhi Police in riot gear when he shot bullets in the air. The Quint was very short of adding how at the end, Pathan did not say ‘Sorry babu’ to the cops for his ‘bravado’.
Shahrukh Pathan fans at The Quint then went to meet his family and friends to know the rioter better.
The Quint’s 101 on how to turn rioter into a victim
Everyone of us saw the visuals of Shahrukh firing bullets on the streets of national capital. But his fans at The Quint wanted to know him better. After all, can a man who fires bullet in the air and points a gun at a cop in riot gear be aggressive and dangerous? And if he runs a riot, threatens cops with a gun, then surely he would have his good reasons, right?
And well, also bring in his family because nothing like showing him as a regular ‘biryani loving guy’. The Quint does not even try too hard to break the stereotypes.
While Shahrukh’s mother waited for him to come home to eat her biryani, her son was happily firing bullets in the air and threatening cops.
The Quint then goes on to explain how his friends describe Shahrukh as someone who was into grooming and was interesting in his appearance. So now we know, biryani-lover Shahrukh liked to put gel in his hair, blow dry them, wear crisp, ironed shirts, good shoes and well, make TikTok videos. His mother tells his fangirls at The Quint that he was innocent and ‘simple-minded’.
Shahrukh’s mother tells his fans at The Quint that she often wonders, “What if she had given him food when he asked? What if the timing was a few minutes before or after namaz?” Because, who knows, the biryani might have stopped him from participating in riots, eh?
Demonise ‘the other’ side
Shahrukh Pathan fangirls at The Quint know that there really is hardly anything that can decriminalise his act that was caught on camera. But, then one way to ‘justify’ it is to blame it on the other side. You see, BJP leader Kapil Mishra and his supporters deciding to remove road blockade causing difficulties to regular residents was termed as ‘hate speech’. The Quint justifies that the place was communally tensed was because of presence of ‘pro-CAA slogans’ and flags of various right-wing organisations.
Before starting anything else, CAA or Citizenship Amendment Act fast-tracks Indian citizenship of persecuted religious minorities in three neighbouring countries where Islam is state religion, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. If persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains from these countries seek Indian citizenship, they would get it slightly faster under new laws. This law does not affect already existing Indian citizens, Hindus and Muslims alike. So really, there still was no logical reason for those folks to block the roads for so many months.
Now, if Indians are chanting pro-CAA slogans, how is it a bad thing? If Indians want to welcome those who feel persecuted in neighbouring countries for being non-Muslims, how is it a threat? And amusing how spotting ‘right wing flag’ is communal but any other religious flag is ‘inclusivity’.
… You want to see my gun?
How did Shahrukh get hits hands on a gun? The Quint explains that Shahrukh’s father, Ali, was born a Sikh but then converted to Islam. 65-year-old Ali claims that his son got ‘caught’ in a crowd where he saw someone with a gun. “With the intention of saving himself, he used his presence of mind and kicked the man above his ankles. He slipped and the pistol fell from his hands. Shahrukh got hold of it and then shot in the air, dispersing the entire crowd from hurting him and other people,” his father explains.
Except, the visuals from the day of the riots show otherwise. Here, have a look.
Which crowd is Shahrukh trying to disperse? I can only see him pointing the gun menacingly at the policeman. Perhaps someone passed on wrong information to Ali or maybe he saw some other visuals which we are unaware of.
Shahrukh’s parents thank Allah for saving his life.
The Quint then continues to humanise and make a riot-accused man’s family appear relatable and make one feel sad about their poverty because they have rats running in the house and minimalist house in dire need of interior decoration overhaul. The Quint then explains how Shahrukh’s elder brother is a Tablighi Jamaat fellow and is an evangelist involved in ‘spreading Islam’.
No remorse
How to say a man accused of a crime has no remorse without saying he has no remorse? Exhibit A:
The Quint describes how Shahrukh had zero remorse of brandishing gun at a cop. His mother tells The Quint that he came home with peanuts in his hands and offered the same to his mother.
Oh no! Even the peanuts he brought for his mother fell from his hands!
This is again where Shahrukh went ‘Sorry babu’.
Let’s just blame it on Jai Shri Ram
You see, Allahu Akbar has become such a terror inducing phrase after multiple terrorists have screamed it before blowing themselves or some planes, buildings up that Islamist apologists now want to shift focus on Jai Shri Ram. This is evident from the number of fake hate crimes where ‘victims’ claimed they were forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ but eventually turned out to be fake.
Okay, let us get this straight. That his name was Shahrukh and not Anurag was known from the very beginning. The only person who feigned ignorance was none other than Rubbish err.. Ravish Kumar from NDTV India. “Police ki haalat yeh hai ki abhi tak giraftar nahin hua hai. Police saaf kehti hai ki Shahrukh hai magar aap social media mein dekhiye Anurag Mishra bataya jaa raha hai. (Situation of Police is such that they have not yet arrested him. Police says his name is Shahrukh but if you see on social media, he is called Anurag Mishra),” he said on his show. NO ONE except himself on his show had referred to him as ‘Anurag Mishra’. Ravish was just being an oversmart person and tried to play with the names of BJP leader Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur, who had been very vocal about CAA back then.
From family to friends
The Quint conjures up a ‘friend’, Shubham Thakur, who has known Shahrukh for 17 years. Thakur claims Shahrukh was like a ‘son’ to his parents when he was away, and hence he chose to defend his house from ‘a mob’. The Quint offers no picture of Shubham Thakur and Shahrukh Pathan, even from their childhood.
Meanwhile, his fans at The Quint were informed by his family how Shahrukh was abandoned by the leftist ‘activists’ who have been putting their weight behind Sharjeel Imam (who wanted to cut off Northeast from rest of India) and Umar Khalid, but not gun brandishing Shahrukh Pathan.
The Quint Dry Cleaners
What does not really come as a surprise is the fact that this is not the first time The Quint has whitewashed either a terrorist or a criminal.
The Quint in 2017 let the world know how the dreaded terrorist Osama Bin Laden was as a husband and a father. Who wouldn’t want to know about a man who left thousands of women widowed and children orphaned.
A year later, they talked about a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist like they would discuss a prospective groom for their chacha ki beti.
In 2019, when the nation was taken aback by the horrifying rape and murder of a 27-year old in Hyderabad, The Quint rushed to the accused’s family to create sympathy highlighting their socio-economic condition. The Quint had interviewed the family members of the four accused, including the main accused Mohammad, alias Areef, a 25-year-old lorry driver of Narayanpet district.
The Quint tried to absolve him of his heinous deed and create a sympathy wave for him by showing how he comes from a poor family. Because, poor criminals, especially if they are Muslims, should not be punished.
In March this year, The Quint not only tried to show Nikita Tomar’s parents as bigoted but also tried to shame them for wanting the killer of their daughter punished. Nikita Tomar was shot dead in broad daylight by Tauseef for not giving in to his ‘romantic advances’. The shocking video had gone viral on social media. The Quint accused ‘hardcore right-wing organisations’ of influencing Nikita Tomar’s family to push the ‘Love-Jihad’ narrative.
From patronising terrorists, rapists, rioters to whitewashing their crimes, The Quint truly has some moral depravity.
