In November this year, several media outlets reported that the wedding reception of an interfaith couple (Divya Dudhrejiya and Imran Mukadam) was called off in Vasai in Maharashtra.
The reports claimed that after the wedding invitation was shared on social media with allegations of “love jihad”, the marriage was cancelled by the families. While. sharing of the invitation card is incorrect and personal details with misleading claims can endanger citizens, the claims that the marriage was cancelled because of it were found untrue.
It turned out that the event was called off due to the death of a member of the bride’s family and not the social media post of Suresh Chavhanke. “The parents told us that due to a death in the family they have cancelled the reception at Vishwakarma Hall in Anand Nagar,” a cop told Hindustan Times.
Newslaundry spreads fake news, and refuses to correct it even after a month’s time
Despite this, leftist news publications such as The Quint and Newslaundry did not bother to correct or update their reports. Even the likes of The Indian Express peddled misleading information without bothering to verify facts with due diligence.
On November 18, Newslaundry published an article titled ‘Interfaith wedding function cancelled after Suresh Chavhanke’s ‘love jihad’ tweet.’ The propaganda piece, authored by reporter Ayush Tiwari, squarely blamed Suresh Chavhanke for disrupting the reception party of an interfaith couple.
The archived version of the article can be accessed here. While quoting an ‘anonymous’ venue manager, the article said, “They cancelled the function at my venue and I returned their deposit. It was because of the function invite that was leaked to the public.”
The leftist propaganda portal thus reiterated the lie that the Editor-in-Chief of Sudarshan News was the man responsible for the cancellation of the event. “Newslaundry contacted one of the families who had organised the wedding function but did not receive a response,” it had claimed.
Despite being a month after Hindustan Times reported that the reception was cancelled due to the death of a family member from the bride’s side, the article by Newslaundry was not updated with the latest information.
As such, anyone searching for ‘Vashi interfaith marriage’ might stumble upon the report of the leftist news website and believe in the falsehoods and half-truths that are peddled by it.
The Quint ensures the amplification of misleading information about
The Quint, too, did not retract its dubious report. Written by one Arshi Qureshi, the archived version of the article can be accessed here.
It had claimed, “Hours after Hindutva proponent… Suresh Chavhanke tweeted out details of an interfaith couple’s wedding reception invitation and linked it to the Shraddha Walkar murder case, Imran and Divya were forced to call off their function in Vasai, on the outskirts of Mumbai.”
The leftist propaganda news outlet shrewdly quoted a venue manager to claim that the event had to be cancelled after the social media post of the Editor-in-Chief of Sudarshan News.
“I’ll incur some loss, but safety comes first. I don’t want to get into a political issue,” the Quint quoted the alleged manager as saying. Despite talking to the police, the news outlet did not report as to why the reception party was called off.
Instead, it used a statement from the manager to suggest that the family members were ‘forced by circumstances’ to cancel the event. “The families of both the bride and the groom came to us and have cancelled their reception programme at our venue,” The Quint again quoted the alleged manager.
The report did not contain any information about the death of the bride’s family member. The content of the report has not been updated with the information about the death of the family member.
The Indian Express did a hitjob against Suresh Suresh Chavhanke
English daily, The Indian Express had published an article titled, ‘Maharashtra: Wedding reception of interfaith couple called off as right-wing activists protest’, was published to this effect on November 24.
Not surprisingly, the report also missed out on the crucial aspect of the death of Divya Dudhrejiya’s family member, which is directly tied to the calling off of the event.
“…as Chavhanke’s tweet became viral, right-wing activists started calling up the hall owner from across the country. Finally, the reception was cancelled,” it read.
Just like The Quint, the English daily contacted the Manikpur police station but did not report the death of Divya’s family member. Instead, it remained fixated on Suresh Chavhanke.
“Despite repeated attempts, the bride did not respond to calls and messages,” The Indian Express shrugged off its responsibility. It has been two weeks now since the report was last updated by the newspaper.
The fact that none of these publications updated their reports points towards the fact that the media is attempting to create literature to discredit the phenomenon of Muslim men targeting Hindu women as a figment of the “right-wing imagination”. While this case was a legitimate case of an inter-faith marriage, alleging that it was a “proponent of Hindutva” because of whose actions the marriage was cancelled, the media is trying to insinuate that all genuine cases of Love Jihad (grooming jihad) could be false as well. This appears to be a well-crafted strategy to deny justice to hundreds of Hindu women who are forcefully converted to Islam, misled and lured into relationships where they often suffer dire consequences owing to religious hate and fanaticism.
