Delhi police say suspect in fatal stabbing of officer is Hindu, not Muslim

This article is more than one year old.
Published on January 18, 2023 at 09:20
2 min read
By Uzair RIZVI, Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Social media users have shared a report by an Indian news outlet that falsely claims Delhi police arrested a Muslim man for the fatal stabbing of a police officer on January 4, 2023 in the capital's Mayapuri district. The report has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, while others shared a similar false claim that the arrested man was a "jihadi". According to Delhi police, the man charged with murder following the killing is Hindu, not Muslim.

Sudarshan News channel uploaded the video on its YouTube channel with 1.4 million followers on January 8, 2023.

The title reads: "Even police is unsafe in Delhi's Mayapuri, where jihadi stabbed policeman Shambhu Dayal to death."

The outlet also uploaded the report to its Twitter account, where it received more than 288,000 views.

The report came after Shambhu Dayal, an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) with Delhi police, was stabbed by a man that he arrested for snatching a mobile phone on January 4. Dayal died from his injuries four days after the incident.

According to Delhi police records shared with AFP, the man arrested and charged for the fatal stabbing is Anish Raj.

Police said the suspect has been charged with: murder; intention to kill a public servant; assaulting a public servant; voluntary obstruction of a public servant; and carrying prohibited arms.

Screenshot of the misleading news report taken on January 16, 2023.

However, Sudarshan News' report erroneously named the suspect "Mohammed Anis" and described him as a "jihadi". It published a similar report on its website in Hindi on January 8, 2023.

Social media users have shared the video report, including Prabha Upadhyay -- a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) local unit in Uttar Pradesh.

Other Facebook and Twitter users also shared posts that described the suspect as a "jihadi", including BJP Delhi's spokesperson Khemchand Sharma in a post that has more than 79,500 views.

Posts making a similar false claim were also shared here and here.

Fatal stabbing

Raj is in fact a Hindu, according to Delhi police.

Mayapuri Police Station's station house officer Ravi Kant also told AFP that there was no communal angle to the case.

"The accused, Anish, is a Hindu. He has been arrested in past for other offences and we have his criminal record," he told AFP.

Delhi Police also posted a tweet in Hindi on its official Twitter on January 11, 2023 to clarify that the person accused of the killing was a Hindu and that the incident was not communal.

"The name of the accused who killed ASI Shambhu Dayal is Anish Raj," the tweet said. "He attacked the ASI with a knife while he was being arrested for stealing a mobile phone. The matter is not communal. Some social media accounts are giving wrong and misleading information."

AFP previously debunked another misleading report from Sudarshan News.

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