CLAIM
A viral post on social media claims that Ravish Kumar, Senior Executive Editor at NDTV India, said that 10 muslim youths lost their jobs in reference to the arrests conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on 26 December. The message reads, “आज १० मुस्लिम युवकों से उनका रोज़गार छीना गया “ (Translated: Today, jobs from 10 Muslim youths were taken away)
The post was first shared by the Facebook page Zee News Fans Club, and the post has gotten over 12,000 shares. The post has also been shared on the page ‘Modi Government’.
TRUE OR FALSE?
This viral post is a hoax. The claims made in the post are related to the NIA arrests conducted on 26 December. We went through Ravish Kumar’s Prime Time Debates on 25, 26 and 27 December. None of the debates showed Ravish Kumar saying anything like what is claimed in the post. The topics of the debates ranged from Sardar Patel’s government, to the status of government banks, to the condition of Sanskrit institutions in the country.
Further, a 3-minute video on NDTV India’s YouTube channel that did cover the NIA searches did not contain any such comments either.
The Quint reached out to Ravish Kumar who confirmed that the post was indeed fake.
WHY DID THE NIA CONDUCT RAIDS?
On 26 December, the NIA conducted searches across 17 locations in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in order to investigate a new ISIS-inspired module styled as 'Harkat ul Harb e Islam'. On interrogating 16 suspects, the agency decided to arrest 10 accused, reported ANI.
In searches held in Delhi’s Seelampur and Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha, Hapur, Meerut and Lucknow, the Agency seized amount worth Rs 7.5 lakh, approximately 100 mobile phones, laptops, 135 SIM cards and memory cards.
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