OpIndia, Sudarshan News journalists give communal spin to Hyderabad honour killing

Abhishek Kumar

Mar 10

The murder of a man named Harish in Petbasheerabad, Hyderabad, recently came to light, which was described as a suspected case of honour killing. Several media outlets, Right Wing propaganda websites, and Right Wing influencers claimed there was a communal angle to the incident. They claimed Harish married a Muslim woman whose brothers later murdered him.

Right Wing propaganda outlet OpIndia published an article claiming that a young man named Harish was murdered by his Muslim wife's brothers in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana. (Archived link)

Sagar Kumar of Sudarshan News, who frequently shares misinformation on social media, tweeted a picture of the deceased, Harish, claiming that he was killed by his in-laws for marrying a Muslim woman. (Archived link)

Abhay Pratap Singh, also affiliated with Sudarshan News, made the same claim while tweeting the image. (Archived link)

Right wing propaganda portal Hindu Post, News 1 India editor-in-chief Anurag Chaddha, BJP supporter Kuldeep Gaur, Varun Kumar Rana, and Twitter handle @total_woke_ shared the image of Harish alleging that his murder had a communal angle. They claimed he had married a Muslim woman, following which her family members killed him.

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Fact Check

Alt News performed a keyword search using terms related to this incident. This led us to an Indian Express report dated March 4. The story covered the murder of a man named Harish in the Petbasheerabad area of Hyderabad. It said that five people had been arrested in the case.

According to the police, the deceased, Devarakonda Harish, 28, was in love with a girl named Manisha, 25. The girl's family had warned Harish against continuing the affair and instructed him to stay away from Manisha. On February 22, the two eloped. The couple reportedly rented an apartment in Petbasheerabad. After this, the woman's brother, along with others, found Harish and killed him. Police said that Manisha's brother was the main accused in this incident, and they also recovered the knife used. In the report, police are also quoted as saying that both the victim and the accused belonged to the same community.

According to a report published in The Times of India on March 6, 10 of the 11 accused in the case had been arrested so far, while the remaining one is absconding. Along with the main accused and Manisha's brother B Deendayal, the police arrested nine others: T Naresh, P Venkatesh Goud, K Rohit Singh, G Akshay Kumar, P Aniket, K Manish, B Sainath, M Rajendra Kumar and a woman named G Navaneetha. The other accused, B Venkat, was absconding.

Alt News spoke to the SHO of Petbasheerabad regarding this incident. He said that there was no communal angle in this incident. He also shared the names and details of the accused. The police sent us photographs of the arrested accused with their faces covered. They also shared a press release in which the incident has been mentioned in detail. It has been clearly said that the crime was a case of honour killing. We verified the police statement in the media reports and the names of the 11 accused with the information available in the police press release.

To sum it up, Right Wing propaganda websites and influencers, journalists and social media users falsely circulated news of a honour killing in Hyderabad with a communal angle. In reality, the victim and the accused are from the same religion.

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