Millions of Indians woke up on Thursday to a deluge of news falsely claiming that the four Indian nationals accused of murdering Sikh-Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023 had been released from custody after to the case against them collapsing.
The stories were repeated in many different places, including the Times of India, which had the headline her report “Four Indians accused in Nijjar murder case released from jail in Canada.”
CBC News has confirmed that the reports are false. None of the accused Nijjar has left custody, and is not expected to.
“It is not true that the four accused have been released on bail,” Ann Seymour of the BC Prosecution Service told CBC News. “The four accused have been arrested, and they are still there arrested.”
The next court appearance will be a pre-trial conference on February 11, and they will also appear in court on February 12.
No fact checking on social media rumors
Among the Indian media that repeated the false claims are the Hindu Post, First Post, Hindustan Times, Business Today, Business Standard, India Today, The New Indian Express, Mint News, News 18 and others.
The news appears to have come from claims from Canadian social media accounts that appear to be based on a misreading of court documents. One such tweet gathered nearly 300,000 views and was still up at the time of publication of this article.
Several Indian media linked the fake news to the apparent collapse of the Canadian police case against the four men, Karan Brar, Amandeep Singh, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh, or to the “inadvertent” failure of the Canadian police to ” against the release of it. trust
These claims are also false. Most or all of the articles were still in circulation when this report was published.
The 'pleasure' of the media
Critics of the Narendra Modi government have pointed to a decline in journalistic standards and press freedom as one of the consequences of his populist, Hindu-centric and nationalist style of government.
The country has witnessed the emergence of an aggressive “Godi” media, which adheres closely to the statements of the Modi government and sometimes targets perceived enemies of the Modi government with critical or poorly substantiated reporting.
Some of the outlets that raised the false allegations about the accused Nijjar fit Godi's media image, but others do not. The Times of India has been publishing for 186 years and is the largest circulating English-language newspaper in the world, but it seems it has not investigated the claims on social media more so than their more interesting counterparts in the Indian media scene.
Relations with India at a low level
The charges and arrests surrounding Nijjar's killing have caused an unprecedented rift in Canada-India relations, with eliminate each other a significant reduction in the number of each country diplomatic presence in the other.
Canada named India's High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other diplomats thankless person in October, after the RCMP accused the Modi government of waging a campaign of violence and intimidation in Canada that included acts of murder, arson, extortion and assault.
CBC News has reported that investigators are looking at the four accused in Nijjar's killing, along with others, in connection with at least four more kills in Canadaincluding an 11-year-old boy.
A US lawsuit backed Justin Trudeau's claim that Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in Canada by the Indian government. We speak to other alleged targets and provide exclusive insight into the plot.
