On the 4th of April, leftist propaganda British newspaper The Guardian published an ‘investigative’ report titled: “Indian government ordered killings in Pakistan, intelligence officials claim”. The report claimed that the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ordered the killings of terrorists on foreign soil.
Bylined by Hannah Ellis-Peterson, Aakash Hassan and Shah Meer Baloch, the ‘investigative’ piece had multiple factual errors. While The Guardian claims to be ‘against’ disinformation, its reports are not free from misinformation alongside the propaganda. In this line, the report in question said that the chief of the Khalistani terrorist outfit Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is dead. However, the Khalistani terrorist is reported to be alive has been issuing threats against Indian diplomats and leaders under the protection of the US government.
“Both men had been major advocates of the Khalistan movement, which seeks to create an independent Sikh state and is illegal in India. India denied any involvement in the killing of Nijjar, while according to a recent report, India’s own investigation into Pannun’s death concluded that it had been carried out by a rogue agent who was no longer working for Raw,” The Guardian report stated.
However, as the Indian readers called out the publication for its factual error, The Guardian silently corrected the “Pannun’s death” to “Pannun plot”.
Guardian article uses the picture of the ‘wrong terrorist’ to claim Indian intelligence got him killed in Pakistan
In another embarrassing error in the same report, the propaganda outlet used the picture of a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Riyaz Ahmed arrested by Delhi Police from the New Delhi Railway Station on 4th February this year, for Riyaz Ahmad alias Abu Qasim, a top terrorist leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba killed by unknown gunmen in Pakistan occupied Kashmir’s Rawalkot in September 2023.
Journalism level of @guardian
— Facts (@BefittingFacts) April 4, 2024
This Riyaz Ahmed was arrested by Delhi Police from New Delhi railway station.
They are confusing him with Riyaz Ahmed(pic 3) who was ahot dead by unknown people 🤦🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/ubNP2IOI6M
As OpIndia reported earlier, Riyaz Ahmed arrested by Delhi Police in February this year, was identified as a retired Indian Army personnel. Ahmed got arrested days after Jammu and Kashmir Police busted a LeT module in district Kupwara that was plotting to carry out attacks in the region. The arrested accused was actively involved in hatching a conspiracy along with his associates to receive arms and ammunition from across the LoC by the terrorist handlers of LeT for carrying out subversive activities in J&K.
Back in September last year, we reported that some unidentified gunmen opened fire inside the Al-Qudus mosque in Rawalkot, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and killed a top terrorist leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The terrorist Riyaz Ahmad alias Abu Qasim was going for Fajr prayers at the mosque.
Riyaz Ahmed was the main architect of the terror attack in Rajouri district’s Dhangri on January 1, which killed seven people and injured 13. Terrorists attacked the village, firing indiscriminately. Furthermore, they had planted an improvised explosive device (IED), which detonated the next morning.
The Guardian authors confused LeT terrorist Riyaz Ahmed arrested by Indian authorities with the LeT terrorist killed by unknown assailants in Pakistan.
As Indian netizens called out The Guardian for its subpar journalistic standards, the publication removed Riyaz Ahmed’s picture. However, The Guardian did not mention any corrigendum or update acknowledging the errors and subsequent correction.
Guardian article uses the wrong spelling of India’s external intelligence agency
For an ‘investigative report’ that should have gone through a thorough review and editing, the article gets a very basic thing wrong, the name of India’s external intelligence agency. Throughout the report, they have used the spelling Raw for Research & Analysis Wing. The official abbreviated form of the name of the agency is R&AW.
While many times the & is committed and it is written as RAW, it still needs to be capitalised, like other acronyms such as CIA, FBI, ISI, CBI etc. But the Guardian report uses the spelling Raw, with R in uppercase and the rest in lowercase letters. It is like writing FBI as Fbi and CIA as Cia.
While Guardian has made some corrections after the errors were pointed out by netizens, the wrong spelling Raw instead of R&AW remains in the report. This word has been used 14 times in the article, all with the wrong spelling.
