New Delhi: 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”.
In its broadcast, Times Now’s Megha Prasad said, “It looks like a sting operation, this particular video. It’s of course been shot with a hidden camera and it tries to show that people who are there at Shaheen Bagh are perhaps being paid for doing this sit-in dharna but again I am saying it is not for us to either corroborate or confirm any of this. We do not even know from where the BJP has got this video. Is it their own video, is it their own sting, have they sourced it from anyone?”.
Prasad continued, “Amit Malviya has not given the credit to anybody. So one is just assuming at this stage, perhaps, they have been able to manage something like this.”
Primetime debates on India Today and Republic TV also focused on Malviya’s video. Republic TV asked “Is Shaheen Bagh a paid protest?” and ran the hashtag #ProtestOnHire.
My Nation, a portal that has links to the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrashekar, published a report on the unverified video and asserted, “Now, you can also add that fact that they are being bribed to take part in the protests.”
News Courtesy: www.altnews.in