Imagine a senior ‘journalist’ and politician-turned-psephologist deciding how the people of India should outrage over rape cases as well as which case is worthy of outrage and which is not. Well, India is a country where things beyond imagination happen every day. On the 26th of August, Frontline Magazine released an interview of Yogendra Yadav, a failed politician, part-time psephologist and protestor of all seasons with ‘journalist’ Saba Naqvi wherein the two discussed how the media is creating “problems” by sincerely reporting the recent conviction of Ajmer Dargah Khadims in the 1992 Ajmer gangrape and blackmail case.
“I’ve noticed today when the rape is in discourse because you’ve had this atrocious incident in Kolkata and there’s been such a disturbing sequence of events after that by the state government suddenly you also have politics around it, its so disturbing….and then you have incident [Badlapur incident] in Maharashtra. But in between all of this, on social media, prominent journalists, what they’ve done is, they’ve put out an old case of Ajmer Dargah rapes,” Saba Naqvi said, adding that it was an attempt to show Muslims in a bad light.
Yes, Saba Naqvi, the perpetrators of the Ajmer gangrape and blackmail scandal were all Muslims, with six being directly linked to Ajmer Dargah, which the cheerleaders of the farcical ‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’ and Bollywood pass off as symbol of communal harmony and heart of Sufi ‘spiritualism’, and one was the leader of Congress party, the alleged political overlords of both Naqvi and Yogendra Yadav [Salim].
Before moving ahead, it is pertinent to mention what the 1992 Ajmer gang rape and blackmail scandal was and who all were convicted after three long decades. On the 20th of August, the POCSO court delivered a historic verdict declaring six accused Nafis Chishti, Naseem alias Tarzan, Salim Chishti, Iqbal Bhati, Sohail Ghani, and Syed Jameen Hussain guilty of the crimes. In 1992, the accused gang-raped more than 100 girl students from Ajmer’s renowned Mayo College and blackmailed them using their photographs. Four other accused have already served their sentences.
Notably, the main accused, Farooq Chishti, served as the President of the Ajmer Youth Congress. Nafis Chishti held the position of Vice President of the Ajmer Indian National Congress, while Anwar Chishti was the Joint Secretary of the Ajmer Indian National Congress.
Coming back to the discussion of the two sapheads, Yogendra Yadav added to Saba Naqvi’s attempt at gaslighting her viewers by claiming that the media has spread “nafrat ka mahaul” with their factual reportage on the 100s of victims of the Ajmer case. He also lamented that a newspaper carried a front-page headline about the conviction of the Ajmer case accused with their names and photographs.
“One of the national dailies carried a front page Hindi banner headline about 5-6 people who were finally convicted after 35 years…now those 6 photographs with their names are on the front page. It should be reported but should that be a banner headline with names and photographs on the front page just on the day the country is discussing something else,” Yadav said.
How shameless is Yogendra Yadav!
— Political Kida (@PoliticalKida) August 27, 2024
According to him, newspapers shouldn’t report the names and photos of the culprits in the Ajmer rape scandal.
Why is the heinous blackmailing, rape, and suicide case not a matter of concern for him, but news reporting is? pic.twitter.com/qwRckn4k9I
Don’t publish the names and photos of Ajmer case perpetrators, because the case is old or the convicts are Muslims?
The Ajmer case was a heinous crime involving the systematic rape and blackmail of young girls, and it shocked the country’s conscience. Even decades later, the conviction of the perpetrators is a crucial step towards justice. While it may disappoint the likes of Saba Naqvi and Yogendra who work tirelessly to whitewash the crimes of such people, highlighting the identity of those convicted acts as a reminder of the gravity of the crime and its long-term consequences for victims and society.
But more importantly, it is the media’s job to inform the public about who is accountable for such atrocities no matter whether the crime happened yesterday, or a few years back or decades back. The assertion that the ‘prominent journalists’ deliberately highlighted the Ajmer verdict when the country was discussing the Kolkata rape and murder case, and the Badlapur incident to demonise Muslims is absolutely baseless. Are Yadav and Naqvi trying to insinuate that the court should have waited for the public to get over the Kolkata rape and murder case and other recent rape cases and then deliver the Ajmer verdict?
If a scandal that destroyed so many lives, several victims committed suicide and it took 32 years to deliver justice to the victims and their families is not worth a front-page headline then what is? At a time when the Kolkata rape and murder case has stirred outrage across the nation and the state authorities have been accused of mishandling in the case, the Ajmer case wherein over the last 32 years many accused got bail, comes as a grim reminder that be it now or three decades back, not much has changed with women who were brutalised then and those who suffer today.
Unsurprisingly, highlighting the names and pictures of the Ajmer case convicts is more problematic to Saba Naqvi and Yogendra Yadav than the perpetrators being Ajmer Dargah ‘Khadims’ and a Congress leader. One wonders if they would have made similar assertions if the perpetrators were not Khadims of Ajmer Dargah but Hindu monks of a famous shrine. Certainly, those dedicated to whitewashing the crimes of Muslims suffer heartburn even when the media simply publishes the names and pictures of Muslim criminals without emphasising their religious identity even though it is important in this case since some of the convicts were directly linked to the Ajmer Dargah.
Even though it may not have been significant to Yadav and Naqvi, withholding the names and pictures of the convicts would have been an attempt to diminish the gravity of their crimes or protect them from public scrutiny. The approach Yogendra Yadav and Saba Naqvi wanted the media to take would have brazenly downplayed the pain of hundreds of victims just because it was an old case. When justice is served three decades later, the case’s who, why, and how require even more detailed attention.
While discussing horrifying cases such as the Kolkata doctor rape case is vital, especially given the TMC government’s suppression of protesters demanding justice for the deceased victim, it should not be at the expense of ignoring or downplaying other crucial cases such as Ajmer. All victims of sexual abuse deserve justice, and the media is responsible for adequately covering these cases, regardless of when they occur. However, individuals who are dedicated to whitewashing Muslim crimes or downplaying the Muslim identity when they engage in criminal acts while emphasising the same when Muslims do something good are not concerned about justice for the victims but about how the media portrays their co-religionists.
Ironically, at one point in the interview, Yogendra Yadav said that the kind of things educated Indians say about women is “cringe-worthy” and that makes him feel if those people ever went to school or learnt some basics in life. However, he fails to empathise with the victims of the Ajmer rape and blackmail scandal carried out by Muslims, particularly, the Khadims of the Ajmer Dargah and chastises the media for identifying the accused, instead of the perpetrators.
