The BBC has once more turned to its strategy of disseminating misinformation to achieve its covert goal and take advantage of India’s socio-economic faultlines to peddle its political agenda. BBC reported the rape and murder of two Dalit sisters implying that the girls were targeted as they were Dalits, “the bottom of a deeply discriminatory Hindu hierarchy.”
The deliberate non-reporting of the names of the accused, which were made public by the police soon after the incident, demonstrates the official British broadcaster’s determination to push the agenda in a sophisticated way. The report by BBC has factual inconsistencies relating to the Incident. The very first one is that the names of the accused were not reported by them even though those names were explicitly announced by the police.
The Uttar Pradesh Police arrested six persons named Junaid, Sohail, Arif, Hafiz, Karimuddin and Chhotu alias Gautam for sexually assaulting the Dalit girls and brutally murdering them. BBC also attempted to play the subtle game of blaming Hindus for crimes committed against Hindus. It explicitly reported, “The girls, both below 18, belonged to the Dalit caste, at the bottom of a deeply discriminatory Hindu hierarchy.” Showing Hindus as ‘deeply discriminatory’ BBC has intended to imply that the incident occurred due to the existence of ‘Hindu hierarchy’ and not because it was a crime committed by culprits who have been arrested already by the police.
In fact, the BBC report mentions that arrests have been made. The UP Police had informed the media about the arrests in a press conference and had given the names of the accused in that same press conference. Meaning, that the BBC was aware of the names of the arrested accused and was very much aware that it is not a crime committed because of the ‘Hindu caste hierarchy. But, they chose to go ahead with their false propaganda and deliberately missed the names of the arrested accused in their report.
Video: Two Muslim youths first befriended the two minor Dalit sisters and then raped & murdered them in an agriculture field in Nighasan, says #LakhimpurKheri SP Sanjiv Suman
— The New Indian (@TheNewIndian_in) September 15, 2022
Rumours about post-mortem examination without the family’s consent are totally false, he adds. pic.twitter.com/BQGXy5kGXh
BBC has also attempted to instigate an element of suspicion on the prompt action taken by Uttar Pradesh police. The official British broadcaster mentioned the encounter by UP Police in quotes, judging its legitimacy. Also, the report mentions, “There is deep suspicion of the police among the Dalit community,” implying that the Police, which nabbed the culprits within hours of the crime, were not trustworthy as BBC was not convinced.
लखीमपुर का हैवान जुनैद !! pic.twitter.com/MpTx0kCwcE
— Dr. Shalabh Mani Tripathi (@shalabhmani) September 15, 2022
This is not the first time BBC has reported India-specific cases in a biased way. There is a plenitude of instances where the British broadcaster reported misinformation packaged in the name of factual reporting and trusted journalism.
Overall, by deliberately missing the names of the culprits, and adding words like ‘Hindu hierarchy’ while emphasizing the Dalit identities of the victims, the BBC was trying to subtly peddle the false narrative that it was a crime committed by the Hindu upper caste, against Dalits.
Past instances of biased and misinformed reporting by BBC
In June 2022, the BBC published a piece about the arrest of Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the leftist propaganda portal Alt News, claiming falsely that Zubair was jailed for being a “vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.” This came after the Delhi Police arrested Zubair for spreading nasty and disrespectful messages against Hindu Gods and Goddesses, as well as hurting the religious sensibilities of the Hindu community. He was detained after a social media user complained about one of his insulting tweets from 2018.
Similarly, in March of this year, BBC News Hindi released a story aimed at emphasizing the perspectives of displaced Kashmiri Pandits who had been moved to Jammu’s Jagti Township. The article magnified the voices of two colony residents, Shadi Lal Pandita and Sunil Pandita, whose negative sentiments opposing the movie The Kashmir Files were exclusively highlighted by the BBC as representing the views of the whole Kashmiri Pandit community settled in Jammu. In reality, the 2 specific persons quoted by the BBC were people associated with political entities that were against the movie for political reasons.
BBC’s duplicity was reported by OpIndia regarding the coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in India. The BBC published a report titled “India coronavirus: Round-the-clock mass cremations,” showing how India failed to manage the Covid-19 outbreak. There was no such coverage by BBC when lakhs of individuals succumbed to COVID-19 in the first wave in the US, UK, and Europe in 2020. There were no headlines emphasising how many people died in Western countries at an alarming pace that India never touched even at its peak.
The BBC produces this type of reporting about India not just because it provokes social unrest in the country, but also because it tarnishes India’s worldwide image, jeopardising India’s diplomatic alliances and economic interests. A thorough assessment of western media bias, including the BBC, can be read here.
