“Being raped by an invader and become their sex slave is way better than committing jauhar (suicide) to avoid that life.”
This ludicrous statement was apparently made by actress Swara Bhasker, according to Shankh Naad. The communal rabble-rousing page put out this quote attributing it to the actor.
The quote was circulated widely among right-wing Twitter handles and Facebook pages. Bhasker had written an open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, director of the movie Padmaavat, and expressed her disagreement and disapproval of the portrayal of the queen and her decision to commit ‘jauhar’ after Chittor had been besieged by Alauddin Khilji.
Bhasker’s view gained much traction on social media. She was attacked for her view by certain sections, some of whom stooped rather low.
Bhasker spoke to Alt News, “This meme by Shankh Naad is an utter and blatant lie. I have literally not used these words strung next to each other in any utterance nor anything I’ve ever said or written in public or in private. I think this perverse, wilful twisting of my article and the argument to serve the hateful and poisonous motives of Shankh Naad and it reeks of vicious intent.
It’s scary and shameful that a politely worded review of a film should be twisted for such sinister purposes. I think this amounts to criminal defamation.”
Forced on the backfoot and threatened with lawsuit, Shankh Naad deleted the tweet and issued a ‘clarification’ and an ‘apology’, hiding behind ‘technicalities’.
For those who are aware of the kind of inflammatory content that Shankh Naad shares, such mischief is not surprising and, sadly, not unexpected. This is because no action has been taken against the page and its owner despite being repeatedly exposed over its blatantly communal agenda, posting malicious content with regularity and impunity.
Recently, Mahesh Vikram Hegde, who is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter and is the founder and admin of the fake news website Postcard.news, shared a fake quote attributed to actor Farhan Akhtar over the communal violence in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh.
(This article was originally published on Alt News and has been republished with permission)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)