We thought after fake interviews & fake statements, fake RTI is the lowest our media can stoop. But they never stop surprising us. This time they come up with fake gang rape story.

On February 24, The Tribunereportedthat vehicles were stopped near Murthal on Delhi-Ambala national highway early in the morning on February 22, vehicles set afire, women in them were dragged into nearby fields and raped. The newspaper also alleged that the district officials hushed them up and advised the victims to keep the matter secret for the sake of their honor.

This was the beginning of the hounding of Haryana CM, running prime time kangaroo courts & causing harm the reputation of Jats in general. Here is an example how Media created panic. In this report NDTV is showing a CCTV footage of outside the Dhaba where the ‘alleged’ gang rape took place. The anchor mentions“Women running away”, however not a single person is seen running in the clip.

[Video courtesy NDTV]

Media reported that “vehicles were set on fire and women were raped”. Take a look at the picture. The car is burnt and clothes of a woman are nicely placed over it supposedly suggesting that a rape took place. The condition of cloth suggests that it was placed there after the remains of burnt car cooled down. Did the rapists wait with the victims for the car to burn and cool down and then rape them so the chunni on the car does not burn? Or did they rape them, came back when the car had cooled down and placed the chunni there with peals of evil laugh? The Tribune quotes that women were brought to the Dhaba early morning. That sounds highly unlikely.

If rapes didn’t happen, from where did the clothes and undergarments of women come? Was it all fabricated in yet another attempt to establish that how women are not safe under Modi or any BJP Sarkar? Or it was again the filthy TRP game? No one knows.

Tribune quotes Amrik Singh, owner of the Dhaba, confirming that a rape victim came to his dhaba in naked condition and there she met her relatives. But Amrik Singh, in an interview to ABP News, completely denies it & calls it fake.

The buck didn’t stop here, the truck driver, who was quoted by leading news channels, confessed that Media had asked him to lie & state that women were raped.

After this all other eye witnesses too, quoted by the newspaper, denied the story. Here is the full police reportwith their statements.

Now, what was the interest of media to show that rape happened? Was it TRP, targeting the BJP govt or defaming Jats?

One woman did come out and said that she was gang raped that night at Murthal and lodged a complaint. The woman named seven of her own relatives for the crime including her brother in law. Her mother and mother-in-law deposed before a village panchayat that she is a “habitual complainant” as she had lodged similar FIRs earlier also against the same seven people 5 times in the last 17 years and termed her allegations as false. Read

Findings till now:

No rape victim or their relatives have come forward even though Haryana Govt has announced that their identities will be kept secret. In the court of the Judicial Magistrate all the eye witnesses mentioned by the newspaper denied giving any such statements. Police questioned owners of the 13 vehicles vandalized and torched that morning; they confirmed that no incidence of molestation or rape took place. The Tribune reported“Three women were taken to Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba and united with their families in the presence of senior police officers”, but CCTV footage at the Dhaba did not show any women with torn clothes. Parveen Arora, the journalist who wrote the report denied meeting any victim or their family and made the news just on statements of the three persons named in the story, same people who denied saying any such things.

In short till date there is no victim and no eye witness of rape. Yet the media made a huge ballyhoo without any verifiable grounds.

Firstpost did try to question the media with an article– “Did media fabricate Murthal gang rapes issue?”. But soon they changed the headline and the content too. Original headline can be still seen in the URL. That again raises question on the role of media in this whole issue.

Based on the report submitted by Haryana Govt to Ministry of Home Affairs it has come to the conclusion that the reports of women being raped in Murthal are false.

[Source: IBN Live]

If the story of the Murthal gang-rape case is true, police and the State Govt must be questioned & tried for suppressing the case. No culprit should escape due punishment. But if this news is found to be a plant by the Media with any unholy intent, they should be brought to book too. This story had the potential of denigrating an entire community, such mindless, insensitive hitjob(?) should not go unpunished.