That 14-Year-Old Raped Inside Moradabad Mosque Incident? It’s Old
Despite right-wing assertions, The Indian Express had reported about this incident back in August 2015.
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A news report is currently being circulated widely by some sections on social media. According to this report, a 14-year-old girl was raped inside a mosque by a cleric and a shopkeeper in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. The report states that the mosque falls under the Bhagwatpur police station area. This news report has been published by some websites such as www.newsbytesapp.com, www.mijaaj.com and www.gnsnews.co.in. Newsbytes App was the first to publish this article, although it was later deleted.
This report is being shared widely on social media. On Twitter, it was shared by right-wing users, who asked why this incident is being ignored by mainstream media organisations, with an obvious reference to the outrage over the gruesome incident in Kathua, J&K.
This news was shared by Prasanna Vishwanathan, the CEO of the right-wing magazine Swarajya, who tweeted that cleric Nazir and shopkeeper Mohsin who allegedly committed the crime are absconding.
Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit was among those who tweeted about it, as did those who are followed on Twitter by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Each of these tweets was retweeted hundreds of times.
Alt News fact-checked this report and discovered that the said incident is not recent, but had in fact occurred in 2015. The Indian Express had reported about this incident in August 2015.
Alt News also contacted Bhagwatpur police station, Moradabad where the complaint was reportedly lodged. Sanjay Tomar, Inspector, Bhagwatpur police station confirmed, “The case is of 2015. The case number is 237/15 and it was registered under section 376D of the IPC. It is not a recent incident”.
An old incident dating back to August 2015 was presented as a recent incident by some news websites, and this was picked up on social media by those who seek to rationalise the horrific incidents of Kathua and Unnao. Resorting to whataboutery and alleging bias in coverage by mainstream media, a false narrative is sought to be created and perpetuated by these sections through this attempt to mislead the people.
(This article was originally published on AltNews.)
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