bjp: Pb Bjp link to unapproved post in Shatabdi | News Ludhiana
JALANDHAR: Distribution of unapproved publication on board Bengaluru-Chennai Shatabdi Express on Friday morning has connection to Punjab and BJP. A Twitter storm forced the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to first post that it had warned the newsagent and then delete the tweet.
Later, Tamil Nadu’s former Additional Chief Secretary Jagmohan Singh Raju, who was a BJP candidate against Navjot Singh Sidhu in Amritsar East constituency, tweeted that he was the original author of the article and challenged Parliament to open a debate. On Friday, gender justice activist Gopika Bashi had tweeted the picture from the Bengaluru weekly ‘Aryavrath Express’ and questioned the IRCTC for distributing a ‘propaganda newspaper’ on board the train. The publication contained articles that called for recognizing the “genocide of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists under Islamic rules”, called for the UN to label Aurangzeb as a “Perpetrator of the Holocaust like Hitler”, and called the first Muslim American congresswoman Ilhan Omar as a “CIA agent”. while reporting on his visit to Pakistani-occupied Kashmir.
“This morning I boarded the Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi Express to be greeted by this blatantly propagandistic publication on every other seat – The Aryavrath Express. I had never even heard of it. How does @IRCTCofficial allow this ???,” Bashi tweeted and Twitter users who asked IRCTC about it included Tamil Nadu Congressman Manickam Tagore, who retweeted Bashi’s post and tagged Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, threatening to raise the matter in the Lok.Sabha, if he did not order an investigation.
As the problem escalated, the IRCTC tweeted on Friday afternoon that the publication was in an approved regular newspaper and that it had warned the newsseller to avoid such inserts in the future. He said he also told the on-board staff to keep watch and advised the license holder of the train. Around the same time, the director of Chennai Division Railways tweeted that he was investigating how an unauthorized newspaper ended up on the train. He claimed it was a Bengaluru Division train and hoped that the relevant division would take appropriate action.
Raju replied to MP Tagore’s tweet: “I am the original author of this article. I would like a real debate in Parliament. Hopefully @SoniaGandhi_FC and @RahulGandhi will participate. Ask Hon @pmo to organize. He also tweeted images from his May 2021 article, “Guru Teg Bahadur: The embodiment of resistance against genocide and forced conversion” with the caption “UN should label Aurangzeb as author of ‘holocaust like Hitler’.
The newspaper also ran another story, “KS Raju Legal Trust to Induce UN to Recognize Genocide of Hindus and Sikhs”. This trust is named after Raju’s father, the late bureaucratic writer KS Raju. The controversy centered on another article by publisher Aryavarth Express carried in the latest edition of the same title.
Responding to a tweet later, Raju posted: “So far the UN has only supported the cause of the Abrahamic religions. The genocide of Hindus and Sikhs was totally ignored. Help us get the representation signed by as many informed citizens as possible. In another tweet, he said, “Receiving incessant requests to approach the government to establish a ‘Hindu Genocide Center’ attached to a leading research university.”
Later, Tamil Nadu’s former Additional Chief Secretary Jagmohan Singh Raju, who was a BJP candidate against Navjot Singh Sidhu in Amritsar East constituency, tweeted that he was the original author of the article and challenged Parliament to open a debate. On Friday, gender justice activist Gopika Bashi had tweeted the picture from the Bengaluru weekly ‘Aryavrath Express’ and questioned the IRCTC for distributing a ‘propaganda newspaper’ on board the train. The publication contained articles that called for recognizing the “genocide of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists under Islamic rules”, called for the UN to label Aurangzeb as a “Perpetrator of the Holocaust like Hitler”, and called the first Muslim American congresswoman Ilhan Omar as a “CIA agent”. while reporting on his visit to Pakistani-occupied Kashmir.
“This morning I boarded the Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi Express to be greeted by this blatantly propagandistic publication on every other seat – The Aryavrath Express. I had never even heard of it. How does @IRCTCofficial allow this ???,” Bashi tweeted and Twitter users who asked IRCTC about it included Tamil Nadu Congressman Manickam Tagore, who retweeted Bashi’s post and tagged Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, threatening to raise the matter in the Lok.Sabha, if he did not order an investigation.
As the problem escalated, the IRCTC tweeted on Friday afternoon that the publication was in an approved regular newspaper and that it had warned the newsseller to avoid such inserts in the future. He said he also told the on-board staff to keep watch and advised the license holder of the train. Around the same time, the director of Chennai Division Railways tweeted that he was investigating how an unauthorized newspaper ended up on the train. He claimed it was a Bengaluru Division train and hoped that the relevant division would take appropriate action.
Raju replied to MP Tagore’s tweet: “I am the original author of this article. I would like a real debate in Parliament. Hopefully @SoniaGandhi_FC and @RahulGandhi will participate. Ask Hon @pmo to organize. He also tweeted images from his May 2021 article, “Guru Teg Bahadur: The embodiment of resistance against genocide and forced conversion” with the caption “UN should label Aurangzeb as author of ‘holocaust like Hitler’.
The newspaper also ran another story, “KS Raju Legal Trust to Induce UN to Recognize Genocide of Hindus and Sikhs”. This trust is named after Raju’s father, the late bureaucratic writer KS Raju. The controversy centered on another article by publisher Aryavarth Express carried in the latest edition of the same title.
Responding to a tweet later, Raju posted: “So far the UN has only supported the cause of the Abrahamic religions. The genocide of Hindus and Sikhs was totally ignored. Help us get the representation signed by as many informed citizens as possible. In another tweet, he said, “Receiving incessant requests to approach the government to establish a ‘Hindu Genocide Center’ attached to a leading research university.”
