Recently, the controversial journalist Rana Ayyub came under attack on Twitter by Saudi Netizens after she posted a Tweet slamming Saudi Arabia for launching a military operation against Yemen. She was accused of peddling fake news and supporting terrorism.

Taking offence to her Tweet, several Saudi Netizens called out the ‘Muslims journalist’, as she was fervently titled by Pakistan for being on common grounds in not only their blind hate for Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also their hatred for Hindus and India, for spreading brazen lies.

Saudi engineer Gassan called it fake news and said that Saudi Arabia has launched military operations in Yemen as part of a coalition of over ten countries in response to a direct request from the legitimate government of Yemen. “We supporting legitimate and you supporting terrorists”, he added.

One Twitter user Abu Sultan called her a “fu**ing liar”, saying all she “said are bullshit”. The user noted that this is why Ayyub has disabled replies to her tweets. Many more similar reactions have filled the Twitter space.

Though the controversial journalist has been receiving a lot of backlash for her recent mendacity, these types of retorts are normal for Rana Ayyub, who is known for spreading outright lies under the cover of journalism. From hiding horrendous crimes committed by Muslim radicals against Hindus, fabricating incidents to create a Muslim victimhood narrative to spreading misinformation to discredit the BJP government in the center, this Washington Post propagandist has done it all.

Below we have tried to compile a list with a few of the endless lies, chicanery, biases, and questionable journalism of Rana Ayyub that has been called out not only by Indians on the right and the center but also by her own on the far-left of the political spectrum.

FIR filed against Rana Ayyub for spreading fake news in Ghaziabad case

On June 15, 2021, the Ghaziabad Police registered an FIR against Alt News cofounder Muhammed Zubair, The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Twitter, and others for trying to stoke communal tension by making false claims that an elderly Muslim man was beaten up and forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. 

In the FIR, police noted that these people and organizations spread manipulated video to give a communal twist to a personal fight.

On investigation, it was found that the original video of thrashing had no reference to Jai Shri Ram and the second video of Saifi was shot in Samajwadi Party leader Umed Idris’ house. Even after being called out by the UP police, the fake news peddler had shown no remorse.

When Rana Ayyub lied through her teeth following ‘comedian’ Manuwar Faruqui’s arrest

In January 2021, the Islamist propagandist concocted a fabricated story to sympathize with ‘comedian’ Munawar Faruqui, after he was sent to jail for mocking Hindu victims of the Godhra riots of 2002 in his shows. In an obvious attempt to vilify the BJP government at the center and to portray them as intolerant, she tweeted that Munawar Faruqui was arrested only because he cracked a joke on Amit Shah.

Rana Ayyub’s Tweet posted on Jan 3, 2021

Ayyub’s tweet was quoted by a Pakistani journalist, who compared India and Pakistan and insinuated that freedom of expression is suppressed in both countries. Many such similar tweets were made where it was claimed that Faruqui’s arrest was sole because he mocked HM Amit Shah.

Her assertion was obviously completely devoid of facts and was solely intended to criticize the central government. The truth was that Faruqui was arrested for allegedly mocking and insulting Hindu deities. As per the complaint, indecent remarks were passed against Hindu gods and goddesses along with Amit Shah during Faruqui’s show. Ayyub had purposely omitted the bit about ‘Hindu deities’ in her tweet.

Rana Ayyub shares an old picture of curfew defaulters being punished like that of migrant labourers

In 2020, when India was grappling with the first bout of the deadly Wuhan Coronavirus, the Islamist masquerading as a journalist attempted to discredit the government and the administration by sharing an image of some men made to squat and hold their ears as punishment. The men were standing on side of a road in a line.

Deleted tweet by Rana Ayyub

In her later Tweet that she deleted, Ayyub claimed that the labourers were being punished for leaving during the lockdown. However, it was proved almost immediately that the image was not of labourers being punished but of those who broke the curfew. A Twitter user @AttomeyBharti had then revealed that the image was from 24th March 2020 from Kanpur leaving the ‘journalist’ red-faced.

Rana Ayyub and her lies surrounding the central govt’s Citizenship Amendment Act

In September 2020, deliberated by her penchant to lie and spread misinformation, Islamist ‘journalist’ and habitual fake news peddler Rana Ayyub had again told the same lies on CAA, in an article about a Shaheen Bagh protestor in Time magazine.

Writing an ode to Bilkis, Rana Ayyub, in her article, has claimed that the 82-year-old ‘protestor’ was the ‘voice of the marginalized in India, who would sit at a protest site from morning to midnight.

Continuing her usual antics, Rana Ayyub blatantly lied that Bilkis, the 82-year-old anti-CAA protestor at Shaheen Bagh, was sitting as a mark of protests at Shaheen Bagh ever since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which “could block Muslims from citizenship in the country”.

Ironically, Rana’s ode to Shaheen Bagh daadi had come days after the Delhi Police has submitted in court that the women at Shaheen Bagh were being paid to sit in protest, like daily wage workers.

Despite knowing the fact that Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the Indian parliament has nothing to do with Indian citizens, Muslim or otherwise, as it seeks to grant citizenship to persecuted religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, Rana Ayyub has continuously resorted to openly peddling fake news on the Citizenship Amendment Act saying that the legislation “could block Muslims from citizenship in the country”.

Shockingly, the publications like ‘TIME’ which publishes such lies in its list of influential people across the world, failed to check the misinformation peddled by the likes of Rana Ayyub and instead provides a platform to push fake news on Indian laws.

Rana Ayyub outrightly lies that Muslims protested ‘peacefully’ against CAA

Continuing with usual antics to propagate outright lies regarding the anti-CAA riots that have been unleashed by Muslim mobs in the country, the Islamist troll masquerading as a journalist had gone on to make hysterical claims stating that PM Modi has driven Muslims of this country to a wall, to which the Muslims of the country have reacted by breaking their silence.

She then went on to make fake claims by stating that the Muslims who were opposing the Modi government was passive for the last six years, however, with Modi government taking decisive decisions on abrogation of Article 370 and passing of Citizenship Amendment Act have now made Muslims come out on streets to protest “peacefully” against the government.

However, Rana Ayyub’s claims that ‘protest’ march taken out by the Muslim mobs across the country against the CAA were ‘peaceful’ is an outright lie. In fact, the anti-CAA riots in which extreme violence and vandalism were recorded across the country have been instigated mostly by Muslim mobs. OpIndia complied with a list of violence perpetrated by Muslims across the country during the anti-CAA protests.

Likewise, after fanatic Muslims in Bangladesh unleashed hell on Hindus in Bangladesh attacking Durga puja pandals on October 14 last year, the terrorist apologist, instead of condemning the Hindu bloodbath by radical Muslims had used the opportunity to express her admiration for Muslims in India’s almost endless patience. Spewing hatred for Indians and Hindus, Ayyub stated that she had not stopped thinking about the incredible tolerance displayed by India’s 200 million Muslims in the face of daily attacks and humiliation under the Modi regime.

Basically, while Hindus have routinely come under attack by Muslim mobs, Muslim apologists like Rana Ayyub have continued to promote the myth of “Hindus murdering Muslims”. Rana Ayyub, who is an Islamist masquerading as a journalist had also called the Uttar Pradesh “Islamophobes” when they had taken action against the rioting mobs. It was almost as if she was saying that just because the rioters were Muslims, they should be allowed to riot on the streets of Uttar Pradesh.

When CRPF busted Rana Ayyub lies about young boys being tortured in Kashmir

In 2019, the controversial journalist had tried to tarnish the Central government by making baseless claims about the situation in Kashmir. In a tweet, she alleged that the Kashmiri school children are being tortured and that there are 13000 teenagers arrested. She had shared a propaganda piece by UK daily The Telegraph to spread the brazen lies. 

Rana Ayyub’s Sepetember 26, 2019 Tweet

No sooner than she Tweeted, a CRPF officer named Kashyap Kadaguttar termed journalist Rana Ayyub’s allegations of young boys being tortured in Kashmir completely bogus. He slammed Ayyub’s conviction in the slanted reporting of the western media. He described the article provided by Ayyub as “baseless reportage.” He claimed that no one had been tortured in Kashmir and chastised her for refusing to believe Army and government statements.

Yet another lie from Rana Ayyub’s long list

One of Rana Ayyub’s other acts was concocting an imaginary conversation designed to smear a TV channel covering the Hindu suffering of the Delhi riots.

The Uber driver, according to Rana Ayyub, was unaware that she is a Muslim. Rana Ayyub’s long litany of lies now included even another clear falsehood. Every Indian inhabitant knows how Uber works by now. The driver’s name is communicated to the passengers before we board the cab, and the passengers’ names are transmitted to the driver. Every time a passenger enters the cab, the driver verifies the passenger’s identity to verify he is picking up the correct individual. The passenger’s name stays glowing in large letters on the driver’s phone throughout the ride as the driver is driven to the passenger’s location using GPS.

When Rana Ayyub blamed RSS and ‘Hindu terrorists’ for 2015 Ranaghat nun rape

When in 2015, a nun was gang-raped by eight men who plundered a Catholic church in Ranaghat, West Bengal, Rana Ayyub, ecstatic at the prospect of blaming the terrible atrocity on her favorite punching bag, the RSS and “Hindu terrorists,” wrote a comprehensive account of the occurrence for DailyO.

“No, Mohan Bhagwat these terrorists have not infiltrated from neighbouring Bangladesh. They are our very own demons indoctrinated by the hate for the haraamzadas,” she wrote.

All of the accused in this case have turned out to be Bangladeshis, including Salim Sheikh, Khaleda Rahaman Mintoo, and Ohidul Seikh. They were accused of violating IPC sections 120B, 395, 397, 376, 376 D, 212, 216 A, and 109 in 2017.

Despite the truth being revealed, the Hindu-hating writer Rana Ayyub, who dragged the RSS through the mud and slandered Hindus as “terrorists” over the nun-rape case displayed no regret, shame, or need to apologize for her hate-filled article.

SC thrashes Ayyub’s book on Gujarat riots

Rana Ayyub, who has a long-standing agenda against Narendra Modi, was also humiliated by the Court when it threw her “investigative” book on the Gujarat riots out of the window. The court had said that her book was based on conjectures and surmises only proving that Ayyub’s relationship with the truth is complicated, to say the least, while her bond with radical Islamism seems all-pervasive.

One of the innuendoes in Ayyub’s book was that then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi had planned ex-Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya’s murder who was shot dead on March 26, 2003, in Ahmedabad during a morning walk.

A trial court found 12 Muslim men guilty of Haren Pandya’s murder, including the main accused Asghar Ali. According to the CBI investigation, the murder was carried out on the orders of a Muslim cleric named Mufti Sufiyan in order to avenge the Gujarat riots.

The men were cleared of murder charges by the Gujarat High Court, citing a “botched investigation” by the CBI, but they were nonetheless charged with criminal conspiracy and attempted murder.

CBI had challenged the High Court ruling in Supreme Court, which eventually upheld the original trial court verdict. The apex court trashed the use of Rana Ayyub’s book ‘Gujarat Files – Anatomy of a Cover-up’ by the defence, stating that it was predicated on suppositions, conjectures, and surmises.  “The opinion of a person is not in the realm of the evidence,” had held the Supreme Court.

‘Journalist’ lies to draw a false equivalence between convicted Indian Mujahideen terrorist Yasin Bhatkal and Sadhvi Pragya

The proverb ‘old habits die hard’ sits perfectly well with Rana Ayyub, a quintessential troll who masquerades as a journalist and often indulges in Hinduphobia and fake news. In 2019, Ayyub, in her new anti-Hindu propaganda, had attempted to equate convicted Islamic terrorists Yasin Bhatkal and Sadhvi Pragya Thakur the now Lok Sabha MP who was accused and not convicted in the Malegaon blast case of 2008.

Rana Ayyub had posted an image of Indian Express news reports, where one of the reports concerning Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, a victim of severe brutality and also, of Congress’ attempt to concoct fake ‘Hindu terror’ narrative, had been published adjacent to a report on dreaded Indian Mujahideen terrorist Yasin Bhatkal.

According to Rana Ayyub, a Hinduphobic troll who often masquerades as a journalist, the two reports depicted the ‘story of new India’. She went on to lament that the Indian Express report was on “two alleged terrorists, one with a Muslim name, another a Hindu name” insinuating, that Yasin Bhatkal was treated unfairly because he has a Muslim name or that Sadhvi Pragya is treated as kid gloves because she has a Hindu name.

Based on Ayyub’s theory of equivalence, there exists no difference between a convicted terrorist belonging to Indian Mujahideen and Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, who was accused and not convicted by any courts for her alleged role in the 2008 Malegaon case. In fact, the court had dropped MCOCA charges against Sadhvi and the NIA had given her a clean chit in the case.

When Rana Ayyub was called out by her own people

It is interesting how Rana Ayyub has been chastised by people across the political spectrum because of her proclivity for lying. It’s not just the right who believes Rana Ayyub is not worth being called a journalist, in fact, individuals on her side of the political spectrum also believe the same thing. It may be recalled how in October 2020, a little battle had brewed on Twitter between abusive troll masquerading as a journalist Swati Chaturvedi and conspiracy theorist masquerading as a journalist Rana Ayyub with the former rebuking the latter for plagiarising content.

She even revealed that the sexual harassment accused Tarun Tejpal had also referred to Rana Ayyub as ‘fraud and lazy reporter’. 

Swati then shared an old Facebook post by disgraced cop Sanjiv Bhatt where he had insinuated, without really naming Rana Ayyub, that she had an “amorous” relationship with one IPS officer investigating the encounter cases and with an activist-lawyer who was fighting the 2002 riots victims’ case.

Prior to the, in March 2020, the duo came face to face when ‘journalist’ Swati Chaturvedi attacked Islamist Rana Ayyub for her insensitive tweet on the coronavirus outbreak in India. Amusing, Swati had then called Ayyub a ‘vile person’ and a ‘leper journalist’.

Since both Swati Chaturvedi and Rana Ayyub have consistently posted biased and misleading news to support their far-left narratives it was difficult to parse those accusations. But the exchange clearly reinforced one thing- it’s not only the right who believes Rana Ayyub isn’t a journalist; individuals on her side of the aisle believe the same thing.

FIR registered against Rana Ayyub alleging money laundering and cheating

While Rana Ayyub has often come under the fire for her malicious and fake reporting, she has also been accused of money laundering and cheating.

In September 2021, an FIR had been registered against controversial journalist Rana Ayyub over money laundering and fraud related to her fundraising campaign. The FIR was filed on 7th September at Indrapuram police station in Ghaziabad in UP in response to a complaint filed by Vikas Sakrityayan of the Hindu IT cell.

The complaint accuses Rana Ayyub of Money Laundering, Cheating, Dishonest Misappropriation of Property, Criminal Breach of Trust by illegally acquiring money from the general public in the name of charity. It says that Rana Ayyub happens to be a journalist by profession and was receiving foreign money without any kind of approval certificate/registration from the government, which is required as per the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010. Hence, she liable is also liable for violating the provisions of FCRA, the complaint had stated.

Based on this complaint, the FIR has been registered under sections 403, 406, 418, 420 or the Indian Penal Code (IPC), section 66D of the IT Act, and section 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

References:

opindia.com - OpIndia Staff