The Washington Post columnist Rana Ayyub, who has been accused of keeping funds collected for philanthropic work, has taken to Twitter Thursday to dog-whistle about a cow smuggling incident that transpired in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh on May 12, using a report published by Opindia earlier in the day. However, in a bid to do so, the controversial journalist landed up peddling fake news.
On May 12, OpIndia reported how three cow smugglers identified as Zeeshan, Saddam and Qasim were apprehended by Ghaziabad Police after a fierce encounter. We reported that the accused were running away after stealing a cow in a Scorpio vehicle. The Police chased them, during which their vehicle collided with a tree. The Police asked them to surrender, but the smugglers opened fire. A constable reportedly got injured. In retaliation, the Police opened fire, and all three cow smugglers were wounded. The cow had been rescued safely.
OpIndia shared the same news report on the microblogging site Twiter on its official handle with the caption “Ghaziabad: Cattle smugglers Zeeshan, Saddam and Qasim shot in police encounter, stolen cow rescued”
Ghaziabad: Cattle smugglers Zeeshan, Saddam and Qasim shot in police encounter, stolen cow rescuedhttps://t.co/pXBUochIfh
— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) May 12, 2022
Rana Ayyub, the Islamist ‘journalist’ and habitual fake news peddler used the screenshot of the OpIndia Tweet with the caption, “When a right-wing, propaganda website ends up revealing the ugly truth of India”.
When a right wing, propaganda website ends up revealing the ugly truth of India pic.twitter.com/E0xsgTAfi6
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) May 12, 2022
As can be seen, OpIndia simply mentioned the word ‘shot’ in its headline not ‘shot dead’. In the report too, we have clearly mentioned in the first paragraph itself that all three cow smugglers were ‘wounded’ in the fierce ‘encounter’ that took place between the police and the accused.
Probably, in her haste to malign our website, the WaPo ‘journalist’, without even bothering to open the article, went on to interpret the word ‘shot’ mentioned in the headline as ‘shot dead’.
Many like-minded ‘leftist-liberals’ and Islamists jumped at the chance to play the victim card. In response to Rana Ayyub’s tweet, one Twitter user @TheJadedQueen expressed regret for Indian Muslims, implying that they are the ones who are continually persecuted in today’s India. He Tweeted, Is this just going to be accepted as the norm now… @hrw@amnesty@BorisJohnson@UNHCRUK invariably it’s always Muslim men that are killed over cows… KILLED!?
Similarly, one Twitter user @LivedShahid also reacted to Rana Ayyub’s unmindful Tweet by lamenting that Muslims are being persecuted under the pretext of cattle rescue under the Modi regime. Like many of Rana Ayyub’s followers, LiveShahid had assumed that the cattle smugglers have been killed in the encounter which is not true at all.
Another Twitter user, @Introvertguy111, noted that authorities were more empathetic to murderers and rapists. He too had assumed that the smugglers were killed by the police.
It’s remarkable that none of these social media users bothered to read the OpIndia report before jumping to such a bizarre conclusion. They chose to base their assumptions only on a mindless remark made by the WaPo ‘journalist’, who clearly misinterpreted “shot at in an encounter” as “shot dead”, and ended up propagating fake news.
Also, the bizarre thing is that though the report mentioned that the smugglers had stolen a cow and had shot at police first, injuring a constable on duty, Rana Ayyub used the report and the image of the smugglers lying down to peddle the perpetual ‘Muslim victimhood’ card.
All three smugglers were seen with injuries on their legs, below the knee, clearly indicating that the police, while facing an attack from the criminals, have still been careful not to cause fatal injuries to them.
Maybe Islamists like Ayyub and her supporters believe that criminals should get a free pass to steal someone’s property and shoot at police personnel if they are Muslims. Even so, the Islamists have not bothered to clarify how are the police personnel supposed to check the religion of a speeding group of criminals during a chase.
Rana Ayyub is accused of donation fraud
It may be recalled that Rana Ayyub is the same ‘journalist’ who has been under the scanner for misusing funds, meant for Covid-19 relief work, for personal gains. In February 2022, Enforcement Directorate had attached assets worth Rs 1.77 crore of Ayyub over allegations of violation of provisions of the Money Laundering Act. The ED in its attachment order had said, “Rana Ayyub has cheated the general Public Donors in a pre-planned manner and with the intention to cheat the general public donors”.
The order says that Rana Ayyub’s scam started right from the time she collected the money and started withdrawing it from her savings account of herself and her family members. The ED order further said that a Fixed Deposit amounting to Rs 50 Lakh was booked from her savings bank account through net banking, and opening a separate Current bank account and subsequently, funds were transferred from her savings bank account and the bank account of her sister and father and were not utilize for the purpose for which it was raised by Rana Ayyub.
You can read the details about the allegations of misusing the covid funds collected by Rana here. Ayyub also happens to be a habitual fake news peddler and spreads rampant misinformation to the public, often lying through her teeth.
