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‘Effort to denigrate Indian institutions’ — IPS body hits out at NYT article on Delhi riots

The IPS Association countered a New York Times article that claims Delhi Police failed to prevent violence during last month's riots, and in some instances even aided it.

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New Delhi: The IPS Association Friday “strongly condemned” an article in The New York Times titled ‘How Delhi’s Police Turned Against Muslims’ for its “biased reporting, dangerous innuendo and outright lies”.

Tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and the Delhi Police on Twitter, the association said the article is “clearly a concerted effort to denigrate and defame Indian Institutions”.

In a separate note, the association said the article alleges that the Delhi Police, police in general and even the Indian judiciary, act on communal lines. “The article makes a laboured attempt to establish this narrative through selective narration of some of the chosen incidents during these riots.”

The article, authored by Jeffrey Gettleman, Sameer Yasir, Suhasini Raj and Hari Kumar, was published Thursday.


Also read: Amit Shah’s clean chit to Delhi Police: They did commendable job, contained riots in 36 hrs


‘Indian Police act without fear, favour’

According to the NYT article, there is evidence to show that during the Delhi riots, the police “concertedly moved against Muslims and at times actively helped the Hindu mobs that rampaged in New Delhi in late February, burning down Muslim homes and targeting Muslim families”.

Countering these claims, the IPS Association said the police force is a professional body that performs its duties without fear or favour.

“Our personnel are neither Hindus nor Muslims. They are Indians, serve Indians, and during critical times they have also sacrificed their lives for Indians,” the association said in a series of tweets.

In a note separately tweeted by the association, it has said while there might have been a few instances of “individual aberrations” by some policemen, “to portray the riots as a collusive inaction of (an) entire police force is an act of sensationalism”.

“India is governed by Rule of Law and no one has immunity from killing anyone,” it added.

The NYT article argued that while there is a 13 per cent Muslim population in Delhi, the Muslim representation in the Delhi Police force is less than 2 per cent.

According to several studies, Muslim representation across the Indian police has “remained consistently low” at 3 to 4 per cent.

‘Colonial hangover’

The NYT article also stated that the police culture in India has long been colonial in character.

“India’s policing culture has long been brutal, biased, anti-minority and almost colonial in character, a holdover from the days of British rule when the police had no illusions of serving the public but were used to suppress a restive population,” the article read.

During the riots, it added, there were several instances wherein police officers were caught on video beating and throwing rocks at Muslim protesters and signalling Hindu mobs to join them.

The piece also cites researchers to argue that police “deliberately put too few officers on the streets, with inadequate firepower, as the violence morphed from clashes between rival protesters into targeted killings of Muslims”.

However, the IPS Association countered the statement to say: “It is easy to cast aspersions on Police but here is a reminder that 2 security personnel have lost their lives in the riots and more than 70 were injured. India’s Police forces will keep doing their duty and ensure every Indian is protected.”

Earlier this month, Prasar Bharti CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati declined an invitation to an event by the BBC, taking exception to its “one-sided” and “without context” coverage of the Delhi riots.

In its reports, the BBC had also claimed that the Delhi Police acted with Hindu rioters to carry out a “wave of attack on Muslims”.


Also read: Number of missing husbands and sons going up as riot-hit Delhi tries to pick up the pieces


 

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Question for the IPS association – why the f#€$ were policemen breaking CCTV cameras, an act associated with criminals elsewhere in the world?! Why were they seen throwing stones and inciting mobs to violence?! Why did they make injured Muslim men sing the national anthem when wounded, one so badly that he died?!

    These the facts, recorded on video are proof, anywhere in the world except India, that they were biased and helped fuel the violence! This response by the IPS Association only proves they were complicit in the crime!

  2. There are 1900 Housing Societies and 500 have 10 percent Muslims… Muslims Are 12 percent of Delhi population and have lower income Due to Madrasa Substandard education ( deliberate choice ) And can’t afford housing societies. Numbers look reasonable.

  3. Always problematic when a world class media entity like the NYT is accused of bias – denigration / defamation. Why should an organisation that takes great pride in its journalism falsify facts, give a deliberate slant to its reporting. Not the pliable segment of our media.

    • World over media is biased but the levels are different. NYT has always been biased based on the ideology it supports. It is a well-known fact.

      • International iconic media outlets may align to a certain point of view and support it, but they don’t peddle fake news. They put out their views based on solid facts. And the report in question is no different.

    • You are behaving as if you were out of Earth for the past couple of decades. Don’t you know that all “world-class” media is now infested with Leftists, who will whitewash all crimes of Muslims, and portray the victims – be they Christians, Jews, Hindus or Buddhists – as bloodthirsty villains. So NYT, WP, WSJ and other media are “world-class” only in the minds of Left sympathisers, whereas.the common people of the world have begun to look upon them as Public Enemy No. 1.

  4. Another leftist newspaper pandering to Muslims narrative. All leftists newspaper are bane of democracy. Print is no different.

  5. While I do agree the govt needs to do more to ensure everyone’s safety, especially minorities. In reference to representation of a particular ethnic group in police, perhaps NYT can also shed light on low percentage of Indians in NY vs their representation in NYPD!?

  6. Oh, the IPS body suddenly woke up. Does it not know it is a puppet of the government and that no citizen trusts it. And whether it was at Jamia, JNU or the Delhi riots, the policy totally showed partiality?

    • If you are eligible by age, health and education join police force, work for few years, let us see how you are working, share your work experience in the police force after few years.

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