On November 13, Tripura Police had detained two HW News journalists Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha, for publishing fake news to spread communal violence. They were arrested and presented in the court in Gomti district on Monday, where they were granted bail. Sakunia had published a series of tweets that allegedly showed vandalized mosques in Tripura.
In one of the videos she had posted, Sakunia claimed that the burnt book was Quran. When Tripura Police approached the person she referred to in the video, he denied the claims of the book being Quran. On questioning Sakunia over the phone about the same, Sakunia allegedly refused to present any evidence to support her claims.
Long history of misleading posts by Samriddhi Sakunia
21-year-old Samriddhi Sakunia works for HW News and has a well-established social media presence on Twitter and Instagram that she uses to propagate agenda-based reports. From CAA to farmer protests and from Israel to central government, Sakunia has published countless posts trying to propagate a specific agenda that falls perfectly in sync with left-leaning media. Notably, she has also written for The Indian Express, The Leaflet, The Citizen, Two Circles and News Click.
Misleading reporting on cases where Muslims were accused
On Instagram, she published a report of a Muslim bangle seller being allegedly harassed by men belonging to the Hindu community. The incident had taken place in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. In the post, she termed the incident as ‘Hindu Terror’. Interestingly she ignored the fact that the Muslim man, identified as Tasleem Ali, was found to have been selling bangles under a Hindu name.
There were allegations that he ‘inappropriately touched’ a minor Hindu girl on the pretext of selling bangles while her mother was inside the house. State Home Ministry also issued a statement in which they revealed that Tasleem was in possession of two Aadhaar cards which is illegal.
No mention of BJP workers brutally lynched in Lakhimpur
The Lakhimpur incident shook the country. It should not have happened. No one should have died. All these statements are true, but when it comes to reporting such events, it is essential to acknowledge the deaths irrespective of what side you are on. Sakunia shared the video of how protesters had died. She shared how opposition leaders were stopped from entering Lakhimpur. In a tweet, she said, “We should hang our heads in shame! Not once but every time this system murders people and the Law and Order.”
We should hang our heads in shame! Not once but everytime this system murders people and the Law and Order #Lakhimpur #LakhimpurKheri
— Samriddhi K Sakunia (@Samriddhi0809) October 3, 2021
However, we could not find any mention of the BJP workers who died during the incident. Shyam Sunder Nishad was lynched, and there is a video of him begging for his life. What about Hariom, who died in the incident? What about Shubham Mishra? And journalist Raman Kashyap? Were they not humans? Or just because they were affiliated or in some way linked to BJP, their deaths do not matter?
Incomplete knowledge of Central Vista Project
In May 2021, she published a video on Instagram questioning the court for imposing a fine on a petitioner against the Central Vista project. She claimed that the Delhi High Court should be criticised for terming the Central Vista Project as essential. She claimed the project could not be held as essential as the “people of the country are fighting for medicines, vaccines as promised and better health infrastructure”. The young journalist seems to have missed the fact that at this time, only a small part of the Central Vista Project is under construction and that too is essential.
India needs a new Parliament building, as the current building cannot hold the actual number of representatives required to represent the population. As per the law, the number of representatives should have been increased every ten years, but it has not happened since 1976. The next date to expand the number of representatives in the parliament is 2026. There is no way that the date can be further extended, and as per experts, the new number of representatives would be 800+ in contrast to the current number of representatives, i.e. 543.
Illogical hate for Israel
In the month of May, when yet another conflict was going on between Israel and Palestine, Sakunia published a video urging people not to stand with Israel. In the video, she said before anyone stands with Israel, the person should think about a few points. According to her, Israel has “illegal settlements” on the land of Palestinians. She further alleged that Israel is abusing power and crushing the voice of Palestinians, as they could not even hold peaceful protests. She claimed that the fight was not of equals as Israel was more powerful.
Going by her logic, India should not fight back if Pakistan attacks as it does not have Armed Forces as strong as India. Anyway, there are a lot of problems with her claims. She completely ignored the fact that Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation of Palestine, has been attacking Israel continuously. Hundreds of rockets were fired at Israel, after which Israel retaliated for its own safety. The attack on Israel was so massive that the Iron Dome, a highly sophisticated AI-based system to prevent rocket attacks on Israeli land, failed to intercept some rockets that killed several Israeli people.
She also missed mentioning in her stories or posts that Hamas co-founder had said in May that Israel had no right to exist.
Interestingly, in one of her posts, she claimed that calling Hamas a terrorist organisation is similar to expecting a kid not to hit back when you slap him/her. One may wonder if she ever saw the size of Israel on the map or tried to see what is the population of that country, or tried to figure out which nations surround that tiny nation that is almost 1/3 of the size of the state of West Bengal.
Claimed ‘Love Jihad’ is a bogus term
Sakunia published a 6-minute+ monologue on her Instagram account in November 2020, trying her level best to call the concept of ‘Love Jihad’ bogus. In her video, she talked about how no agency holds specific data on cases of Love Jihad, including NCW. She further alleged that the ruling party, BJP, has been trying to communalise inter-faith marriages. Sakunia tried to prove Jove Jihad is a bogus concept by stating there was no proof of cases that there was ‘Jihad’ where a Muslim man married a Hindu woman.
Without any comments on her illogic monologue, OpIndia can only direct towards the countless reports that we have covered over the past few years where Muslim men CHANGED their names and presented themselves as HINDU men just to MARRY Hindu women. In most of the cases, they forced the women to convert. Several women were abused, tortured and even killed when they refused to convert to be with those Muslim men when their true identity was revealed. Not a single month had passed in the last two years when OpIndia did not report at least one such case.
If the Muslim men who fell in love with Hindu women were so pure, why did they change their names? Why did they force the Hindu women to convert? Why do they torture them to convert? Why didn’t they marriage under the Special Marriage Act instead of forcing the women to convert? There are a lot of questions that Sakunia may want to find answers to.
