The recent major focus of fake news was on Rajdeep Sardesai - who did not learn even after having to issue an unconditional apology in Court in 2019, for false reporting in another case. When aggressive and violent farmer protestors entered Delhi on January 26, in violation of their agreed and written agreement, tractors were also seen racing to mow down policemen on duty. One such tractor, when racing, turned turtle, the driver fell off and died. Rajdeep Sardesai, a journalist of India Today, in his tweet, claimed that protester Navreet Singh died because of being shot by the Delhi Police. There was also a video where, in a dramatic style, Sardesai put two fingers to his temple and indicated the spot where the bullet had entered the head. The police released a video about the tractor’s racing mishap and later, Sardesai apologized and deleted his tweet.
But the fake story did not end here as it was retweeted by several others - Shashi Tharoor and journalists, Mrinal Pande of National Herald, Zafar Agha, The Caravan’s Paresh Nath, and Anant Nath. FIRs were filed against Sardesai and others charging them with sedition, promotion of enmity, criminal conspiracy and spreading spread “false and misleading information” Some of them have approached the court for relief against FIRs.
In spite of the post-mortem ruling out any bullet injuries, The Wire (yes the same The Wire that had carried the fake story of Chinese aggression in Arunachal Pradesh, mentioned in my earlier post) continued with the story going to the extent of quoting the violators, the victim's family and the post-mortem report by an unknown doctor. Concerned doctors have denied this.
A case has also been filed against The Wire's editor Siddharth Varadarajan - the American who was earlier editor of The Hindu and is now with The Wire.
While the consequences on the others have perhaps been comparatively mild, Rajdeep Sardesai was immediately taken off-air by India Today and it is reported that he is no longer with them - did he quit or was he politely shown the door? Or was this action a consequence of the letter from the President’s Office on another of his fake tweets? On 23 January, the 125th birth anniversary of the freedom fighter, President Ram Nath Kovind unveiled a portrait of Bose at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. And Sardesai, Barkha Dutt amongst others, falsely alleged that the portrait was not of Bose, but that of the Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee dressed as the freedom fighter for the 2019 film Gumnaami.
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