Last month we saw a relentless campaign by Times Now and its editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami against Islamic preacher, Zakir Naik.
In an article by Janta Ka Reporter it was shown that Goswami, through his series of endless programmes and debates, had concluded that Naik was responsible for preaching terror. Launching a new Twitter hashtag #StopZakirNaik, the anchor of Newshour wanted the Indian agencies to act against the Mumbai based Islamic scholar.
The channel, like several other media outlets in India, appeared to have based his anti-Naik campaign on a report published in The Daily Star, which later retracted its story and apologised to Naik for false reporting observed the article by Janta Ka Reporter.
Among the Times Now’s charges against Naik were the latter’s series of speeches calling Muslims to be terrorists.
Naik has often said Muslims to be terrorists but only to terrorise the anti-socials and not innocent people.
Arnab may not have seen a rationale in Naik’s point then. But, it seems, the popular anchor has had a silent change of heart and has started agreeing with the man he so aggressively ran the campaign against.
On Friday night, while debating the brutalities committed by the right-wing cow protectors against Muslims and Dalits, Arnab borrowed Naik’s lines to lecture the representatives of Hindutva groups.
To quote him verbatim, Arnab said, “They (Hindutva groups) want to cause terror. if you want to create terror, then do it among rapists. You cause terror among murderers. You cause terror for terrorists.”
And then Janta Ka Reporter showed that quoted Naik on what he said in his innumerable speeches on Muslims becoming terrorists.
“Every Muslim should be a terrorist. Whenever a criminal sees a Muslim he should be terrified. Whenever a rapist sees a Muslim, he should be terrified…Whenever any anti-social element sees a Muslim he should be terrified..”
Questions may be asked why Arnab founds the words uttered by Naik as condoning terrorism but chose to use the same while addressing members of right-wing Hindutva militants, who’ve been flaunting their act to terrorise innocent Muslims and Dalits.
Read the original article by Janta Ka Reporter here
Check out the video here
Feature image courtesy Janta Ka Reporter
