A news clip telecast by ‘Zee News’ is being widely shared on social media claiming that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had referred to the accused of the Udaipur tailor’s murder as children, and that they should be pardoned. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Rahul Gandhi called the Udaipur tailor’s murder accused as children and sought their pardon.
Fact: ‘Zee News’ aired an edited video combining video clips of two different remarks recently made by Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad, Kerala. Rahul Gandhi, during a recent media interaction in Kerala, referred to the student activists who vandalized his MP office in Wayanad as children. He did not call the Udaipur tailor’s murder accused as children. ‘Zee News’ misreported this statement of Rahul Gandhi as being made in the context of the Udaipur incident. ‘Zee News’ issued an apology for telecasting Rahul Gandhi’s remarks with a wrong context linking to the Udaipur’s tailor murder. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
When we searched to check whether Rahul Gandhi had made any such remarks calling the accused of Udaipur tailor’s murder as children, we found similar visuals in a video published by ‘ANI’, in which Rahul Gandhi was referring to the student activists who vandalized the his MP office in Wayanad as children. ‘ANI’ reported that Rahul Gandhi, while speaking to the media in Kerala, termed the vandalization of his Wayanad office an unfortunate incident and said that he doesn’t have any hostilities toward the perpetrators.
Speaking about the vandalization of his office, Rahul Gandhi said, “Well, first of all, it’s my office. But before being it’s my office, it is the office of the people of Wayanad. This is the office of the voice of the people of Wayanad. So, it’s quite an unfortunate thing. Everywhere in the country, you see the idea of violence will resolve problems, violence will never resolve problems. However, the children who did this, I mean they are also children. So, it’s not fine, it’s not a good thing to do. But they acted in an irresponsible way. I don’t have anger or hostility towards them. They have done a silly thing. So, we should leave it at that”. Rahul Gandhi in the video called student activists who vandalized his MP office Wayanad as children. He did not call the Udaipur tailor’s murder accused as children. Reporting Rahul Gandhi’s remarks about students who vandalized his MP office in Wayanad, several other news channels have recently published articles and videos. They can be seen here and here.
During this media interaction in Kerala, when a reporter asked Rahul Gandhi to respond to Supreme Court remarks on Nupur Sharma, Rahul Gandhi said, “the atmosphere in the country was created by the ruling dispensation. It is not the person who made this comment. It is the Prime Minister, it is the Home Minister, it is the BJP and RSS that have created this environment in the country. This environment of anger, this environment of anger and frankly, this creation of the environment in the country is an anti-National act”. By clubbing these two video clips of different remarks of Rahul Gandhi, ‘Zee News’ misreported that Rahul Gandhi had referred to the Udaipur tailor’s murder accused as children.
‘Zee News’ later issued an apology for telecasting Rahul Gandhi’s remarks with the wrong context linking to the Udaipur’s tailor murder. ‘Zee News’ anchor Rohit Ranjan made a tweet informing that during their show in DNA, Rahul Gandhi’s statement was misreported with a wrong context linking it to the Udaipur incident. He mentioned it as a human error and apologized for it. However, an FIR was filed against ‘Zee News’ anchor Rohit Ranjan and a few BJP leaders for misquoting Rahul Gandhi’s remarks.
Expressing his anguish over the heinous murder in Udaipur, on 28 June 2022, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that brutalism in the name of any religion cannot be tolerated in the country. Rahul Gandhi said that those who spread terror using such actions should be punished immediately.
To sum it up, ‘Zee News’ linked Rahul Gandhi’s remarks about Wayanad office vandalism to Udaipur tailor’s murder, apologized later.
