Last evening, the Delhi Police entered the Jamia Millia Islamia University to quell the bouts of violent acts accompanying the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Public property was destroyed as the enraged mobsters indulged in blatant acts of vandalism and arson. Hundreds of ‘protesters’ were paraded out of the University with their hands in the air. The Police said that they had nabbed some outsiders who were indulging in violence.
Even as the police valiantly discharged their duty to uphold law and order in the National Capital, some of the mischief mongers on Social Media websites were busy fanning falsehoods and stoking rumours about the police crackdown. One such unverified speculation floated by these miscreants that snowballed into a widespread rumour was related to a death of JMI student Shakir Kota.
Scores of Twitter users instantly lapped up the rumour and started tweeting about the student’s death in order to further incite the protests and assert that the Delhi Police has been an enabler of a fascist regime.
My friend is stuck in Jamia, has sent me some videos.
According to him It’s emergency in Jamia, one JMI student named Shakir Kota ( Department not known for now) has been killed.
This is a blot on each one of us, remember on each one of us.#JamiaProtest#JamiaMilia
— Chowkidar Nirav Modi (@niiravmodi) December 15, 2019
One Jamia student by Name # Shakir has lost his life due to harsh brutal Delhi police attack.
— محمداكرم (@XQbL4dsiMsoAwb6) December 15, 2019
Today, December 15, 2019: A black day in the history of Jamia Millia Islamia. Delhi Police come up as culprits. We lost a student named Shakir today who was brutally beaten up the police. #DemocracyRIP #standwithjamia @Ishq_Urdu @iamrana @MirchiSayema @ArvindKejriwal @msisodia pic.twitter.com/XKzql3yILd
— Maaz Hassan (@Maaz_Hassan22) December 15, 2019
However, these assertions were merely falsehoods to push a motivated agenda against the law enforcement agencies and thereby pressurising the government into revoking the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019. Pro-AAP blog Janta Ka Reporter also reported unverified news that there are reports that three students have died in the clashes.
Amongst those involve in rumour mongering were one Ashlin Mathew, editor with Congress mouthpiece National Herald.
Delhi-based lawyer Dushyant Arora also tweeted how at least one student is confirmed dead. He has now quietly deleted the tweet without offering any explanation for the fake news.
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Before long, the propaganda was busted as the news started to trickle in that no protestors were killed in the police action. Shakir, which many Twitter users were claiming had died is still alive. However, despite news reports denying deaths of demonstrators, the rumours about the deaths of protestors continued to be propagated unabatedly.
Today, the Vice-Chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia, Najma Akthar had to come out and brief the media over the ongoing rumours of deaths of two students of the University.
Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, Najma Akhtar: There has been a strong rumour that two students died, we deny this totally, none of our students died. About 200 people were injured of which many were our students pic.twitter.com/3uGAAVJuri
— ANI (@ANI) December 16, 2019
Denying the rumours about deaths of two JMI students, Akthar said that none of their students died due to the police action. She also mentioned that about 200 students got injured because of the police crackdown adding that many of those 200 injured students did not belong to the university.
