'A Times Now broadcast of March 5 ran a video of a man in red, wearing a helmet, opening fire during communal riots in Delhi. “New video of Delhi violence surfaces. Video reportedly from Maujpur…This is the 4th video of attack on police,” the channel claimed. The video was tweeted using #ShaheenLynchModel... A day later, the same clip was tweeted by BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya who insinuated that the shooter was a member of the Muslim community. He wrote, “Another video of a ‘peaceful’ protestor firing at the cops?
'The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear a petition filed by social activist Harsh Manderseeking action against leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party for their hate speeches leading up to communal riots in Delhi until the matter of the activist’s allegedly derogatory comments about the judiciary are sorted out. “You made statements against the Supreme Court,” said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde. “We will not hear you now... If this is what Harsh Mander feels about the Supreme Court, then we will have to decide on that first.”...
'On February 27, Hindu nationalist blog OpIndia published a “ground report” on the riots in North East Delhi, claiming that a temple was “forcibly occupied” and “attacked” by “frenzied Islamist fundamentalists”. The article was shared by BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, and retweeted by the Twitter handle of BJP Assam. R Jagannathan, the editorial director of Swarajya, also retweeted the piece. Newslaundry hit the ground to verify the claims made in the report, and they turned out to be false...'
'On January 15, 2020, Amit Malviya, national in-charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) IT cell, shared a video of a random group of persons insinuating that the women of Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh are protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) for money. His allegation was found baseless by a collaborative Alt News-Newslaundry investigation. But this hardly discouraged Malviya... Two days hence, he shared a photograph of an elderly man eating biryani at Shaheen Bagh.
'...Malviya’s misleading tweets are not limited to Shaheen Bagh. Alt News has been monitoring his social media feeds for a while and has found that he repeatedly uses misinformation in an attempt to discredit individuals, communities, opposition parties, leaders and social movements. Since he is the official head of the BJP’s online propaganda machine, the misinformation promoted by Malviya has a dangerous ripple effect. His false claims are echoed by party members and supporters of the BJP, giving rise to large-scale misinformation campaigns...'
'On January 15, Bharatiya Janata Party social media head Amit Malviya tweeted a video of a group of men talking about the Shaheen Bagh protesters. They alleged that women participating in the sit-in protest are being paid to demonstrate against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens. A man in the video further claimed that the protest was “sponsored” by the Congress party. Malviya reiterated the claim in his tweet... Times Now broadcast the video tweeted by Malviya with the disclaimer that it “does not vouch for the authenticity of the video”.
'On Tuesday, actor Deepika Padukone attended a protest meeting at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University to express solidarity with students who had been injured in violence unleashed by a masked mob on Sunday. Many have blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, for planning the violence. Padukone’s gesture irked some people, who took to social media to make #BoycottChhapaak one of the top trends on Twitter.
'If reality spoke for itself, Prasar Bharati would probably dispute it. On January 6, a day after mob violence in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, India's state broadcaster spun a blatantly false angle on it. This was fact-checked by AltNews, but Prasar Bharati would not back down... In short, the state broadcaster of India — itself borne out of the fears around autonomy following ruthless state propaganda during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime — is now peddling demonstrably false information online. Unsurprisingly, this information suits the position of the current establishment.
'A video of a man in a red jacket beating up another person in green clothing is widely circulating on social media to espouse the claim that students associated with Left parties attacked members of RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). This triggered the violence in JNU on the intervening night of January 5-6, per the narrative. Journalist Sumit Kumar Singh the first to tweet the video. He wrote, “This triggered clashes in #JNU campus. Students associated with Left parties bashed up #ABVP members when they were facilitating admission process.
'With the BJP and the Centre coming in for intense criticism for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the party had begun a campaign asking people to give a missed call to a number to “register” their support for the controversial law. While reports said that the BJP IT cell would also “give a push” to the campaign on social media outlets, the strategy took a rather interesting turn, as it later emerged...
