After our report was published, IndiaSpend and its fact-checking arm, FactChecker, tweeted out a document listing their reasons for why most of the cases we pointed to did not meet their description of a hate crime. Its response said, “Of 35 cases-- 9 cases fit the description of a hate crime--as our methodology clearly lists. We have added these to our database. One case Swarajya pointed out was already recorded in the database, and so has been dropped. 2 cases have been put on hold: 1 has been referred to our advisors for adjudication, the other, owing to conflicting news reports of the incident, has been referred to a fact finding team.”

A look at its reasons, however, reveals shocking dishonesty and bias in how IndiaSpend treats cases where victims are Hindus, compared to cases where victims are Muslims or Christians. When this correspondent showed 10 such cases to IndiaSpend, it responded that we have misunderstood its methodology.

We will now show that IndiaSpend’s methodology is neither consistent nor logical, and is applied selectively based on the victim’s religious identity. We studied IndiaSpend's reasons for dropping the cases where victims were Hindus and found that it has altered its definition of a hate crime to consistently keep such cases out of its hate crime database.

IndiaSpend chooses to believe Muslim victims but not Hindu ones

Let’s take the Mewat case where a Dalit Hindu man accused a Muslim neighbour of beating him up using casteist slurs. The Dalit man said in his statement in the first information report (FIR) that his neighbour had been constantly pressuring him to convert to Islam. The case was picked up by a number of Hindi dailies and reported in detail by Swarajya and Newslaundry among the English-language publications.

When Swarajya pointed this case out to IndiaSpend, it responded saying, “News reports around this incident show conflicting information about the motive of the crime. While one says it was a matter of religious bias, the other says it was 'personal dispute'. A fact-finding team will visit the area to determine the facts of the case.”

Here, IndiaSpend is misrepresenting facts. If one reads the reports on the incident carefully, it emerges that it is only a police officer who mentioned “personal dispute” as a possible motive. The victim’s statement has been consistent, both in the FIR and to the media.

Readers can see that while in this case, the folks at IndiaSpend chose not to believe the victim, they have readily done so in cases where victims are Muslims or Christians even when the perpetrators are unknown.

Take these two cases, for instance, that IndiaSpend added to its database:

1. A Muslim man found to be smuggling buffaloes told the police he was attacked by men who said they were “gau rakshaks”.

In this case, IndiaSpend has not only readily believed a smuggler’s statement but also listed the perpetrators as “Hindus” even when they have not been identified. Curiously, when questioned about the basis of this assumption, IndiaSpend said “data on cow vigilante violence show the movement is driven by Hindus”.

“Data” here refers to IndiaSpend’s own database on cow-related violence. This is circular reasoning, and thus a logical fallacy.

2. Three Muslim clerics said they were assaulted on a moving train at night when they were returning to their village in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat from Delhi. “Why do you wear a rumaal (scarf),” one of their attackers allegedly shouted.

In this case, the mere word of the clerics was enough for IndiaSpend to add it to its hate crime database even when, as per its own admission, the perpetrators were unidentified. Here, IndiaSpend ignored the police’s statement that it is not clear whether the attack had communal links.

There are several other cases where the police dismissed communal motives – as is often the tendency of the police – but IndiaSpend still went on to add the cases to its database based on the statement of the victim, of course of the desired religious profile. For instance, the death of a minor boy in Delhi at the hands of minor children of the same colony.