Question Over Media Coverage Of Teachers Suspension, Subsequent Protest, Testimonies From Students (Photo Screen Grab on X Hate Detector 🔍 @HateDetectors )

Media and news channels in India seem to be increasingly lacking integrity and fairness in their coverage of the events. The reporting of the incident involving the suspension of the three teachers after alleging Love Jihad and forced conversion and the subsequent students” protest and their testimonies lacked comprehensiveness while serving a distortive picture.

In Rajasthan’s Kota district, three teachers were suspended by the education ministry after a local Hindu group, Sarva Hindu Samaj submitted a memorandum alleging religious conversion and attempted love jihad.

The media then run stories about the suspension of teachers citing alleged conversion and love of Jihad. However, the subsequent protest of the students against the suspension of their teachers, refuting the allegations and demanding the withdrawal of the teachers” suspension received “very little”  attention from the mainstream media.

It was the fact-checker and co-founder of Atl News, Mohammed Zubair who took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to tell people the statements of the protesting students.  Mr Zubair, noting the forced testimonies made by the group against the Muslim teachers shared a video where a 10-class student said he was not forced to offer namaz but was forced and pressured to level false allegations against these three Muslim teachers in front of the media. “They were continuously telling me that you are a Hindu and told me things to say in the interview. I got trapped in their words and committed a mistake I should have never done. These are ours, and how can I lie against them? What I am today is because of them,” the student said, Mr Zubair shared.

Mr Zubair also shared his older video in which he accused the teacher of making the students offer namaz. Mr Zubai also expressed his concern over the “selective reporting” of the News channels, skipping the protest by students that the group took forced testimony from against the teachers.

After the Rajasthan education minister suspended the three teachers, students from the school gathered outside the SDM office inSangod, protesting against the suspension of their teachers, stating that there were no instances of conversions or love jihad. The protesting students said some students were forced to make false allegations against the teachers.