The edifice of lies surrounding Gujarat Riots that controversial journalist Rana Ayyub had assiduously built, presumably to sell her book ‘Gujarat Files’, came crashing down yet again as a fellow journalist revealed how Rana had passed up her offer to publish her much-vaunted ‘tapes’ that she routinely bills as authoritative proof of Gujarat Riots conspiracy.
Madhu Trehan, a journalist for Tehelka, the same organisation with which Rana Ayyub was earlier employed, recently took to Twitter to inform that the author of ‘Gujarat Files’ had refused her offer to publish the tapes in the interview conducted by Trehan for Newslaundry.
“Rana Ayub repeatedly says she has offered her tapes to every single website and they have refused. In her interview with me for @newslaundry it is on video record I offered to publish her tapes and she refused,” Trehan responded to a tweet which carried a snippet of an old video from Rana’s interaction with Sadanand Dhume on a show hosted by Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera.
Rana Ayub repeatedly says she has offered her tapes to every single website and they have refused. In her interview with me for @newslaundry it is on video record I offered to publish her tapes and she refused.
— madhu trehan (@madhutrehan) January 29, 2022
In the snippet, Rana could be seen lamenting that she had approached all news organisations one can think of and all websites one can reach out to in order to get a platform to upload her so-called damning ‘tapes’ on Gujarat riots. However, this does not seem to cut ice with journalist Sadanand Dhume, who claims that Ayyub’s proclamations are suspect since all she had to do was to get a website and dump all her tapes on them.
It is pertinent to note here that this is not the first time that doubts have been casted on Rana Ayyub’s claims of possessing ‘incriminating tapes’, which she alleges would prove the administration’s role in inciting the riots. The journalist has also published a book called ‘Gujarat Files’ to reinforce her fiction about the riots that rocked the country in the wake of Godhra train burning incident, in which 59 Hindus, many of them children and women, lost their lives after a bogey of Sabarmati Express returning from Ayodhya was set on fire by miscreants near Godhra station.
Supreme Court trashes Rana Ayyub’s book ‘Gujarat Files’ as based on surmises, conjectures and suppositions
Significantly, the Supreme Court of India has also trashed Rana Ayyub’s account in ‘Gujarat Files’, rubbishing the book as based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions. The court was hearing the matter of conviction granted to 12 accused in the Haren Pandya murder case. The top court overturned the Gujarat High Court’s order, observing that book ‘Gujarat Files – Anatomy of a coverup’ written by journalist Rana Ayyub in support of its case has no evidentiary value.
The bench said, “The Book by Rana Ayyub is of no utility. It is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value”. Implying that the arguments made by Rana Ayyub in her book are her opinions, the court said that “The opinion of a person is not in the realm of the evidence.”
Most importantly, the judgement says that there is a likelihood of it being politically motivated, which cannot be ruled out. “The way in which the things have moved in Gujarat post-Godhra incident, such allegations and counter-allegations are not uncommon and had been raised a number of times and have been found to be untenable and afterthought”, the court noted.
Well, this is not the only occasion when Rana has taken to deceit and lies. There are countless instances when Rana has been caught peddling news that have little to do with reality. The litany of lies that Rana has championed over the years could be read here.
