By Pervez Bari

NEW DELHI: Popular Front of India’s (PFI), state and district units have filed 1015 complaints against mainstream media and social media accounts in 8 states.

A PFI Press release said that 500 rejoinders and notices were sent to different media houses. Cases were filed in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra.  The legal follow up of Popular Front has resulted in the arrest of 19 people. This legal intervention is continuing and more such cases will be filed in the coming days.

The PFI has responded to this hate campaign through its cadre network and legal volunteers. The organisation has initiated legal action by identifying the hate mongers on social media and also the offensive news that were published or aired on mainstream media.

India has witnessed numerous incidents of attacks on Muslims across the country as a direct result of this hate campaign. In many places there were calls of boycotts on Muslim traders. There were also reports of attacks on Muslim vegetable/fruit vendors, the release stated.

The release said: “Our country has witnessed in recent times a well-planned anti-Muslim hate campaign by the Hindutva fascist forces. The objective of this hate campaign was to demonize the Muslim community.  Social media was flooded with hate posts alleging that the Corona virus was a planned conspiracy of Muslims. Unfortunately, the mainstream media which was supposed to expose the hate news factory also joined this campaign and ran prime time news debates directly targetting the Muslim community.