Many media organizations jumped the gun and reported that PM Modi’s life was under threat. Delhi Police Commissioner clarified that it was false.
New Delhi: On October 13, every social media site was abuzz with the news that fresh threats to PM Modi’s life were made.
Articles in Quint and India Today and many other national and regional news media said that Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik received an email which said that PM Modi will be assassinated on a specific date in 2019. Apparently, the email came from a jail in Assam.
“After a mail issuing death threat to PM Modi was received on the official email id of Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, the security agencies have been put on alert. Confirming to The Quint about the receipt of such an email, the Delhi Police said, the threat is in the form of a one-liner claiming that PM Modi will be killed in November 2019. Sources have told The Quint that the email was sent from a jail in Assam and an investigation is ongoing in the matter,” a report from Quint said.
They put out another news on the same day which said that Patnaik had received no such complaint. “Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik has not received a mail carrying a life threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an officer said on Saturday. “Reports that mention that Commissioner received a mail carrying a threat to kill Prime Minister are completely baseless and false,” a senior police officer said, reacting to the reports,” reported IANS.
The damage was done. The news of the threat being fake did not get as much publicity as the threat did. Many activists, human rights defenders and lawyers among others are currently being arrested, jailed and harassed for making death threats to Modi which so far have been unfounded.
The exact nature of the alleged unlawful activities of those arrested has not been made clear though they are booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The documents occasionally mentioned as evidence against them are of highly questionable authenticity more often than not appearing in the media rather than in the courts of jurisdiction.
