Why We Must Fight Media Narrative Wars Centered Around Ghastly Crimes

Dear Reader,

Earlier this week we published a ground report about the alleged kidnapping and rape of a minor, a 10-year-old girl, in Ghaziabad. The girl had allegedly been taken to a madrassa, held there overnight and raped.

An even more sickening development in the case was to happen later. Here are the details from Swati Goel Sharma's report

"Shockingly, some on the social media have defended the horrific act, claiming that news of the rape was “fake” as it was actually a “love affair”. These persons, most of them Muslims, even demanded that the survivor be married off to the minor rapist. Claims were made that the survivor had “confessed” before the magistrate that she was in “love” with the boy and wanted to marry him. Even a student leader of National Students Union of India (NSUI) – the student body of the Congress party – jumped in and put out a post calling the poor girl his sister-in-law, insinuating that she be married off to her rapist. As pointed out by OpIndia, the comments gave the case a sickening angle that not only aimed at downplaying the rape inside a madrassa but also legitimised sex with a minor, and child marriage."

You can read the full report here.

Dear reader, Swarajya was perhaps the only media platform that has reported on the crime from the ground with the complete context of how Islamists came out to defend the violation of a child. You may recall how the outrage activist industry had set out to shame all Indians after the Kathua rape and murder case, an equally horrifying crime.

The only reason activists did not raise a hue and cry about the Ghaziabad case? Narrative. The only reason celebrities kept quiet about the Ghaziabad case? The accused, the victim and the defence of the crime - details about all of these are inconvenient to talk about. But guess what, we disagree and we want to continue doing the same. We will report from the ground, provide full context and keep things factual. We will call out the hypocrisy and stand for the truth. That's why we sent someone to report from the ground and bring facts about the matter to us.

Media narrative wars are unfortunate but when the old media is so hell-bent on pushing a narrative rather than keeping things factual what choice do we have?

Doing this is not easy for us, we're a small media platform, after all. The only thing that keeps us going and motivated is your support in the form of subscriptions.

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