Nine days after Islamists unleashed mayhem in Haldwani city in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, Newslaundry on Saturday (17th February) resorted to justifying the outbreak of violence following police action on an illegal madrassa-mosque.
‘Journalists’ associated with the leftist propaganda outlet joined hands first to deny and then contextualise the Islamist violence against police personnel.
At about 14:55 minutes into their podcast, one Sumedha Mittal claimed, “Prashant and I had gone there for 5 days…I don’t think we have been able to make sure that the true picture of the violence has come out. This is because there was no access.”
“On 8th February i.e. the night when the violence broke out, a curfew was imposed on the entire city of Haldwani. As the days went by, the curfew restrictions were relaxed for the Haldwani city but for Banbhoolpura area i.e. the locality where the mosque and the madrassa were razed,” she further added.
The propaganda artist shrewdly claimed that there was not ‘enough information’ about how the riots unfolded in Haldwani and insinuated that the law enforcement authorities somehow came in the way of the ‘truth’ by imposing a curfew.
Sumedha Mittal failed to address the fact that the curfew was imposed in the first place due to the extent of arson, stone pelting, violence and the deteriorating law and order situation in Haldwani.
Manisha Pande calls rioters ‘crowds’, paints them as victims
‘Managing Editor’ of Newslaundry, Manisha Pande, however, conceded that the rioters ran rampage in Haldwani but carefully substituted ‘violent Muslim mobs’ with ‘crowds.’
“With Haldwani, what seems to have happened is the crowd got really out of control and angry. It’s true that they went on a rampage and attacked the police but you are antagonising them in such a way…” she was heard saying.
Manisha Pande then painted the Islamists as ‘victims’ who were somehow left with no option but to retaliate against police action. “You are coming for their houses, places of worship, schools without any notice or warning. You know you are creating a situation,” she brazened out.
She however left out an important detail. The local administration had the requisite permission to carry out the demolition drive. Manisha Pande thus effectively endorsed violence as a means to oppose civic action against illegal encroachments.
Newslaundry propagandists leave no stone unturned
Newslaundry’s Editor-in-Chief Raman Kirpal tried to portray the District Magistrate Vandana Singh in a bad light for ordering ‘firing on rioters.’ “That used to be a huge thing but now nobody is even talking about it,” he lamented during the podcast.
We have more than enough evidence and eyewitness testimonies that suggest that the violence by Islamists in Haldwani was pre-planned. The administration was thus forced by Islamists to take stringent measures to put an end to the orgy of violence.
In that light, the police firing on rioters for carrying out arson and attacking police personnel was thus justified. Raman Kirpal left out this important context to insinuate that the law enforcement authorities somehow fired gunshots at innocent civilians.
Jayashree Arunachalam of Newslaundry then casually claimed that ‘Muslim mobs’ were provoked by the State government. “It’s basically a pattern. You attack Muslims enough until someone responds and then you use that response as a sort of excuse for State violence.”
Riots in Haldwani
On 8th February this year, Islamists resorted to stone pelting and arson in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani area. The frenzied mob attacked authorities who went there to demolish a madrasa, which was built on illegally encroached govt land near the Banbhulpura police station.
The Islamists pelted stones at the policemen and Haldwani Municipal Corporation workers present there. Later, they surrounded the police station and went on to set fire to the vehicles stationed outside the Banbhulpura police station.
The mob also set a transformer on fire, resulting in a power outage in the area. Several journalists and administration officials were trapped inside the police station as a mob surrounded the Banbhulpura police station.
Newslaundry whitewashes Mira Road violence against Hindus
Days after Islamists ran riots in the Mira Road suburb in the Thane district of Maharashtra, Newslaundry came to their rescue on 27th January.
In a YouTube video titled ‘Godi media’s u-turn on Ram Mandir | Hypocrisy Ki Seema?’, the leftist media outlet not only whitewashed the Islamist violence against Hindus but dubbed the bulldozer action against the accused as ‘majoritarian revenge.’
“Can one move on when you have another set of people who celebrated January 22nd with an ugly spirit of revenge…This was reaction number two to the Ram Mandir inauguration,” Newslaundry ‘journalist’ Manisha Pande brazened out.
“Two days after the communal clash, 15 shops demolished in Mumbai suburb’s Haidary Chowk area,” the video featured the screenshot of an article by The Indian Express.
This is a classic trope used by leftist media to deviate public discourse from the chronology of events. On 21st January this year, frenzied Muslim mobs attacked Hindus when they were carrying out a procession through the Mira Road suburb.
The incident took place on the eve of the Ram Mandir Pran Prathistha. The Hindu devotees were raising the religious chant of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and had adorned their vehicles with saffron (bhagwa) flags.
This drew the ire of the intolerant ‘minority’, who wasted no time in launching an unprovoked attack on the Hindus. The frenzied Muslim mobs vandalised cars, stomped on saffron flags, manhandled and injured a Hindu woman and assaulted other Hindu men.
All of this happened only because a group of Hindus took out a religious procession through a ‘Muslim area’, a supposedly no-go zone for adherents of other religious communities.
While Islamists are habituated to getting away with their ‘street veto’, the police cracked down on them and arrested 13 men. The city administration also promptly swung into action and bulldozed the illegal encroachments of the accused.
Newslaundry cunningly omitted the entire context and chain of events to dub the bulldozer action as some form of ‘revenge’ by the majority community.
“As communal tensions hit Mira Road in Mumbai, listen to what the MLA Geeta Bharat Jain had to say…”, ‘journalist’ Manisha Pande claimed.
She conveniently glossed over the fact that it was the Islamists who started the violence, thus forcing law enforcement to take matters into their own hands.
One of the keywords used frequently by Newslaundry, perhaps to woo their core audience, is ‘majoritarianism’. In the video posted by the leftist propaganda outlet on 27th January, it left no stone to portray Islamists as the harbingers of peace and reconciliation.
Through its rhetoric and ’emotional appeal’, Newslaundry gave the impression that the violence that broke out in the wake of Ram Mandir Pran Prathistha was the doing of the ‘majority’ Hindu community.
The guilt-tripping did not end with painting Muslims as victims and Hindus as aggressors. ‘Journalist’ Manisha Pande went a step ahead and put the onus of ‘inclusive behaviour’ exclusively on the Hindu community.
“The journey ahead for us as a nation depends on what India chooses between peace, reconciliation, moving ahead or revenge and ugly majoritarian politics,” she ranted.
The two-pronged strategy used by Newslaundry was to deny any wrongdoing against the Hindu community and at the same time ask the victimised lot to be more accommodating of the aggressors.
