In light of a case against co-founder of ‘Alt News’, Mohammad Zubair, it is necessary to understand the reality of Alt News’ major individual Pratik Sinha and his father the late Mukul Sinha.
Firstpost.com is a website which seemed to have more credibility than people like the late Mukul Sinha and Pratik Sinha. On 25 September 2017, it announced joining hands with Pratik Sinha’s AltNews to ‘curb the menace of fake news’. This of course, would assume that Pratik Sinha is a ‘Fake News’ buster. In reality of course, Pratik Sinha is one of the biggest of the fake news spreaders himself. In this piece, we will see some of his outrageous lies of the past. This does not mean that every claim of AltNews is wrong, or that Pratik Sinha has not correctly pointed some wrong i.e. fake claims. Few of the exposes of incorrect facts reported by websites like PostcardNews are correct, but that does not hide the lies spread by Pratik Sinha and his father the late Mukul Sinha earlier.
There was a website called ‘TruthofGujarat’ launched by Pratik Sinha and his father the late Mukul Sinha in 2013, who passed away due to lung cancer in May 2014. Its campaign against the BJP and outrageous lies had no negative impact, and the BJP won a full majority in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. After that, in a way, the ‘TruthofGujarat’ name became irrelevant, since the man who they were maligning became Prime Minister of India. The posts of TruthofGujarat revealed it to be a die-hard anti-Narendra Modi, anti-BJP, anti-RSS website (possibly with support of political rivals of the BJP) and it had no credibility, its aim was to forcibly pooh-pooh Narendra Modi and BJP somehow. They then launched a new page called ‘Alt News’.
Pratik Sinha’s father Mukul Sinha was the lawyer of the family of the terrorist Javed Sheikh, who was killed along with Ishrat Jahan who was a terrorist and 2 others who were Pakistani nationals in June 2004, whose bodies have not been claimed by anybody. They are and were so desperately anti- Narendra Modi that they forcibly tried to imply that anything good that may have happened in Gujarat was in spite of Modi and everything negative was because of him! This shows that their agenda is far from ‘reporting the truth’, rather it is to ‘demonize, malign, condemn Narendra Modi and his party’. Sadly for them, in their hate campaign, they have indulged in blatant lies, and false defamation, and also violated many provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), particularly 153-A (needlessly infuriating a community) and 499-500 (Defamation).
1- Mukul Sinha lied: “This extremely shattered man who was also supposed to be the Chief Minister of the State had refused to visit a single relief camp till former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Shah Alam relief camp in Ahmedabad on April 4, 2002 – a full 35 days after the massacre.”
Factory of lies by the terrorists’ lawyer Mukul Sinha and his son Pratik Sinha continued!
Truth is that the major riots began on 28 Feb and ended in 3 days on 2nd March 2002 (after that stray violence in isolated pockets restarted around mid-March). No violence was reported on 3rd March. According to The Hindu of 7th March 2002, Narendra Modi visited relief camps on 6 March 2002. Its report (paragraph 6):
“Mr. Modi visited relief camps housing the minorities and instructed the officials concerned to ensure supply of essential commodities. Doctors visited the camps to treat the injured for the first time today since the beginning of the violence. Some 30,000 people are being sheltered in 18 relief camps.”
Besides, India Today weekly dated 18 March 2002 which covered events till 7 March 2002 also reported: “Modi’s visit to a camp where displaced Hindus were lodged drew an enthusiastic response” (before 7 March). This shows that Modi visited relief camps housing Hindus also, before 7 March 2002.
The Times of India also reported the next day that Narendra Modi visited relief camps on 6 March 2002.
The report of the SIT appointed and monitored by the Supreme Court said on page 261 that though Modi was very busy handling the riots, he visited relief camps with L K Advani on 3rd March 2002 (the very next day after the major violence ended on 2nd March) as well as independently on 5th and 6th March 2002.
On twitter we informed TruthofGujarat that Modi visited the camps much before 4 April, on 5 and 6 March itself at least and showed them the reports of The Times of India and The Hindu. What did ‘TruthofGujarat’ say? They said: “How can you know that your source is correct and our source is not correct?”
Dishonesty to the maximum limits! The news report given immediately the next day by extremely anti-Modi, anti-BJP newspapers like The Times of India and The Hindu on the fact of Modi’s visit to relief camps on 6 March cannot be wrong. It is absolutely impossible that die-hard anti-BJP newspapers like The Hindu and The Times of India would wrongly say so. Die-hard anti-RSS fortnightly Frontline gave a passing comment on describing the visit of Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 4 April that “This was the first time that Modi visited a relief camp”. This report of Frontline was long after Modi’s visits of 5 and 6 March and Frontline has no credibility as far as anti-BJP reporting is concerned.
Any person with an iota of intellectual honesty would know that Modi visited relief camps at least on 6 March 2002 seeing the reports of The Times of India and The Hindu the next day. We also have independent SIT verification that Modi visited camps on 3rd, 5th and 6th March 2002 itself. But TruthofGujarat refused to budge and continued its lies, saying “Our source is Frontline”.
This shows that TruthofGujarat’s Pratik Sinha does not bother for the truth, his aim is to forcibly demonize Narendra Modi. How dishonest they are can be seen from this episode clearly.
This nails the outrageous, inflammatory, and defamatory lies of ‘TruthofGujarat’. Frontline is a known die-hard anti-RSS, anti-BJP and anti-Sangh Parivar fortnightly with staunch Leftist leanings. It is a publication of The Hindu group itself. It did not even see its own Group’s leading paper’s report The Hindu on 7 March 2002 to know that Modi visited on 6 March, or maybe it did and yet it lied so as to malign Modi. In its desperation to malign Modi, TruthofGujarat of Pratik Sinha only exposed itself, its own lies and Frontline fortnightly!And now claims to be a ‘Fake news buster’!
http://truthofgujarat-lies.blogspot.in/2014/02/truthofgujarat-liarsofgujarat-lie-that.html
Some more of the misdeeds of TruthofGujarat and more particularly, Pratik Sinha have been nailed by us here.
2- Our website www.gujaratriots.com nailed the lies of most of the media on the 2002 riots- Godhra and after. The fact that even after Godhra, Muslims were also on the offensive and the riots were not one-sided was exposed brutally. Several myths and false stories about the riots, about Narendra Modi and the Gujarat Government were exposed brutally, such as the outrageous lie that a pregnant woman’s womb was ripped open and foetus taken out, or that ‘2000 Muslims were killed in the riots‘ whereas the UPA Government gave figures of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus, or that ‘The 2002 riots were the ”worst ever riots” in India or that Narendra Modi said ‘Every action has equal and opposite reaction’. Pratik Sinha and Mukul Sinha, unable to refute our website’s content on merit, lied that our website www.gujaratriots.com ‘Justifies 2002 riots.’
http://truthofgujarat-lies.blogspot.in/2014/02/truthofgujarat-lies-that.html
This lie has been tweeted quite often by opponents of Narendra Modi, including top people like Asauddin Owaisi (MIM chief), Sanjay Jha (Congress Party spokesman).
In response to this, it has been asked: “Please pin-point where on the site does www.gujaratriots.com ‘justify’ riots when the riots are condemned in Myth 1?” No answer has been given. Those who allege that the site ‘justifies’ the 2002 riots either lack basic English comprehension skills or are lying. In case of people like Mukul and Pratik Sinha, it is absolutely impossible that they lack comprehension skills.
In Myth 1 gujaratriots.com says: “The death of a single innocent person, whether Hindu or Muslim or belonging to any other religion, is highly unfortunate and cannot be justified. That more than 1,000 people were killed is highly unfortunate and reprehensible. But that cannot a justification to exaggerate and inflate the number of people killed to 2,000 or any higher figure.”
Just to clarify things, in case of anyone lacking comprehension skills, “Justifying Gujarat riots” would mean saying that “The riots that occurred, the killings (of both Hindus and Muslims), injuries, violence was justified and correct”- whereas we say that not a single innocent person should be killed or injured and no violence should be caused. Despite this clarity, Mukul Sinha and Pratik Sinha have lied that we ‘Justify’ the riots, thereby defaming us.
The reality is that www.gujaratriots.com is a site with very solid, comprehensive sources, original links to most of the reports quoted, and most of the sources are from staunch anti-BJP, and anti-Narendra Modi newspapers of those days. As they are rattled by such a site, they resort to dirty tricks and ugly defamation by claiming that the site ‘justifies’ the riots. What a disgusting way to delude people!
3- Pratik Sinha and Mukul Sinha also lied that ‘Narendra Modi runs www.gujaratriots.com through his IT team’. In truth, Narendra Modi has absolutely nothing to do with that website. It was made and written by us. This lie has been refuted here http://truthofgujarat-lies.blogspot.in/2014/02/truthofgujarat-lawyers-of-terrorists.html
4-TruthofGujarat and Mukul Sinha tried their best to let the barbaric killers of Godhra go-scot free. They tried to and try to say that the Godhra carnage was not done by any mob at all despite there being a judicial confession by a Muslim accused in February 2003 that Godhra was a planned act, and he had himself taken part in it, though he retracted his confession later. Confessions made before a judge in court are admissible as evidence, though not those made to police.
Mukul Sinha said, “It is nonsense to say that Godhra was a planned act or a conspiracy. It was an accident, which was wrongly termed as the ‘most horrendous diabolical incident’.”
After his presentation in August 2004, some listeners wanted Sinha to clarify if his contention also meant that neither Muslims nor Hindus planned Godhra. Sinha quipped, “The Vishwa Hindu Parishad didn’t burn S-6 compartment in Godhra, but they did burn the country thereafter!”
Their website TruthofGujarat.com kept denying that Godhra was done by Muslims (even after the conviction of 31 Muslims in February 2011 by the trial court which proves their guilt) and claimed it was an ‘accident’ without explaining the burning rags and why the passengers did not run out of the train and save their lives, if the fire was accidental. This man Mukul Sinha was given full opportunity to present his case to the Nanavati Commission. Everyone- the SIT appointed by the Supreme Court (which did the Godhra investigation and prosecution also, like in some other selected cases), the Nanavati Commission and the trial court said that not only was Godhra an act of terrorism done by a Muslim mob, it was also pre-planned. Of course, the train burning in Godhra was done by an armed mob of fanatic Muslims in the densely Muslim-populated area of Signal Falia, who roasted to coal 59 women and children (including BABIES and TODDLERS) and old and men in the most dastardly manner. There are more than 50 eyewitnesses who saw this, like 16-year old Gayatri Panchal who was in shock for quite a while after Godhra.
http://truthofgujarat-lies.blogspot.in/2014/02/truthofgujarat-and-mukul-sinha.html
6- Mukul Sinha lied that the 2002 riots were a ‘genocide’ while they were ‘riots’.
Actually what else can one expect from lawyers of terrorists’ families? It is not that families of suspected or actual terrorists do not have a right to appoint lawyers. But to see eminent people wholly defending terrorists despite knowing fully well that they were terrorists indeed, and trying to frame innocent people, waging war on the nation’s Intelligence officials is disgusting.
Right since 2002- Mukul Sinha always called the 2002 riots as ‘genocide’. Here in June 2002 he said: “Please don’t say this was a riot. It was a genocide, pure and simple”.
Sadly for Mukul Sinha, it was exactly the opposite. Please don’t say this was genocide. It was a riot, pure and simple. By lying Mukul Sinha has violated 153-A (needless infuriating a community) and 499-500 of IPC (defamation). But the terrorists’ lawyer will always whitewash Muslim acts of murder. If he could go to the extent of denying the basic fact that a mob of fanatic Muslims, barbaric killers, roasted to death 59 innocents, including 25 women and 15 children in Godhra, then he will certainly lie and hide the fact that even after Godhra, Muslims were equally on the offensive and attacked and killed hundreds of Hindus and made 40,000 Hindus homeless and move to refugee camps in Gujarat.
The story of Muslims attacking and killing Hindus in Gujarat under Narendra Modi’s rule even after Godhra can be clearly understood by reading this.
http://www.gujaratriots.com/index.php/2008/08/attacks-on-hindus/
The Hindu reported on 2nd March, 2002: “But unlike Thursday (i.e. 28th February) when one community was entirely at the receiving end, the minority backlash (on 1st March) caused further worsening of the situation. Police presence had little impact on the two communities pelting stones at each other in Bapunagar, Gomtipur, Dariapur, Shahpur, Naroda (Muslim concentrated areas) and other areas from where incidents of firing had been reported. But there were no reports of casualty. Pitched battle was continuing between the two communities late in the evening. The official sources said timely arrival of the police foiled a retaliatory attempt to break into a prominent temple in Jamalpur locality in the walled city.”
This lie’s truth can be seen here http://truthofgujarat-lies.blogspot.in/2014/02/truthofgujarat-lies-about-2002-riots.html
7- TruthofGujarat lied on the issue of ‘Snoopgate’, named the woman in that Snoopgate episode by her real name, and indulged in massive lies and defamation of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah by accusing them of ‘stalking and snooping on the woman architect’. In reality of course, it was not ‘surveillance but security’ which was asked for by the woman, against the antics of one of the Sharma brothers, who was a known Modi opponent and a ‘hero’ of the ‘secular-liberal’ lobby.The woman and her father petitioned in the Gujarat High Court that it was security and not surveillance, and there should be no inquiry in it. Yet, Pratik Sinha and TruthofGujarat did not care to apologize to Narendra Modi for the slander and defamation done by them.8- AltNews also wrote many lies about a twitter user ‘TrueIndology”s posts. The author of that twitter handle nailed AltNews lies here. TrueIndology writes: “One little-known website called “Alt News”, patronised by well known political propagandists, recently spun few posts using my Twitter Timeline, calling it a “goldmine of fictitious historical claims”. Well, since it has invoked my Twitter Timeline to get traffic and ad-revenue, of course, it is a goldmine, indeed, for the post truth peddling Fraud News.” The whole article totally dismantles the lies of AltNews.
The above are just a few (very few) of the dangerous, outrageous, inflammatory and defamatory lies spread by Mukul and Pratik Sinha through ‘TruthofGujarat’ as well as ‘AltNews’. In some forthcoming articles, we will see expose of some more of them. Actually, no one takes AltNews too seriously. But some like Rana Ayub, Saba Naqvi, Sagarika Ghose, NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan seem to praise it. It is necessary to know the truth of these liars of AltNews, and of others who have spread lies on other occasions too! However, some of the claims of AltNews have been correct, and we always feel that anyone while writing should be careful to be correct on facts. Genuine mistakes, if any, should be corrected as soon as possible by all.
About author: The author has written a book titled “Gujarat Riots: The True Story” which can be bought here and the widely-read website www.gujaratriots.com and is one of the admins of the Twitter handle @Gujaratriotscom https://twitter.com/Gujaratriotscom
(This article was first published on Satyavijayi at https://satyavijayi.com/altnews-fake-news-buster-pratik-sinha-altnews-big-liar-lies-fake-news-exposed/)
