The so-called secular media has long worked to water down heinous crimes, especially when the accused belongs to the minority community. By calling a Muslim occultist, who reportedly poisoned nine members of the Sangli family a ‘Tantrik’, many renowned media outlets like Aaj Tak, News 18, Hindustan Times and The Indian Express on Tuesday proceeded to give this incident a Hindu spin as well.
In general parlance, the ‘Tantrik’ is a practitioner of the “tantra vidya“, and is mainly associated with Hinduism, leading to a perception that a Hindu individual committed the crime.
On June 20, nine members of the same family namely Dr Manik Vanmore (49), a veterinarian and Popat Vanmore (52), an art teacher, their mother, wives, and four children of the two couples, were found dead inside their house in Maharashtra’s Sangli. As per the prima facie evidence, the local Police suspected it to be a case of mass suicide. It was reported that owing to their abysmal financial condition, the family members consumed poison and died by suicide.
However, now, further investigation into the case has revealed that it was not a case of suicide but cold-blooded murder.
The Sangli police informed that an occult practitioner named Abbas Mohammad Ali Bagwan and his accomplice had poisoned the entire family in Sangli by poisoning the tea and making it look like a suicide pact.
“We have arrested Abbas and his driver for murder. Investigations have revealed these two people had allegedly poisoned to death nine members of the family,” Inspector General of Police (Kolhapur Range) Manoj Kumar Lohiya told PTI. A police official said section 302 (Punishment for murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) will be invoked.
According to reports, Abbas had taken a huge sum of money from the deceased family under the pretext of locating a hidden treasure’ for them. When he was not successful in finding the ‘hidden treasure’, the family started pressing Abbas to return the money. According to reports, Abbas allegedly killed the family of nine with the help of his accomplice as he didn’t want to return the money.
News18 refers to Muslim occult practitioner as ‘Tantrik’
Even as the names of the perpetrator of the crime is clearly visible in their own report, News18 referred to the occult practitioner as ‘Tantrik’ in an attempt to give a Hindu spin to the crime.
In its report, News18 clearly mentions that the accused is an occult practitioner named Abbas Mohammad Ali Bagwan. However, in an attempt to ‘secularise’ the crime, News18, in its report, misleadingly refers to the accused as a ‘Tantrik’.
Not just News18, but even the popular Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak, an organisation operating under the umbrella of TV Today Network, resorted to a similar tactic of peddling the same propaganda by claiming that the arrested individual in the mass suicide case was a ‘Tantrik’.
‘Secular’ media houses like Hindustan Times and The Indian Express went on to refer to the Muslim occult practitioner as a ‘mantrik’ or a ‘god-man’.
The desperation of ‘secular’ media to give a Hindu spin to crimes perpetrated by criminals of other faiths
Media organisations often resort to chicanery by deliberately ignoring complete details and leaving out the identities of the criminals altogether if they belong to the minority community. However, in the last few years, there have been concerted attempts made by many media outfits to not only conceal the names of perpetrators but also give them a Hindu spin to depict that the crime was committed by Hindus.
Over the years, OpIndia has published detailed articles exposing the propensity of these so-called secular media houses to shield the Muslim criminals by giving a Hindu spin to the crimes committed by them.
