Dubai: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has condemned some Indian media spreading fake news about Abu Dhabi Crown Prince.
"This (fake news), is an insult to all Indians," the chief minister wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday.
Vijayan referred to the Gulf News report exposing the political agenda of some organisations trying to derive electoral mileage from the fake news story.
"The forces that create fake news are active," Vijayan wrote in his post charging that such "forces are attempting to help the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party push its political agenda".
"This is not an isolated incident," the chief minister added.
The fake news is part of a carefully designed attempt by some groups to spread false propaganda and gain political mileage in India, said the chief minister.
Around the time of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the UAE, a story with a video clip had gone viral in some mainstream Indian news outlets, claiming that His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, had chanted a Hindu prayer greeting at a ceremony organised by a Hindu group.
The video, tweeted by leading Indian channels such as Times Now and Zee TV in the run up to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE, claimed that Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed had chanted “Jai Siya Ram” (a common Hindu prayerful greeting addressing the deity Ram) while addressing a Hindu spiritual programme conducted by the guru Morari Bapu in Abu Dhabi in September 2016.
Outright fake
But news story is outright fake.
Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed never attended any such event: the person in the video shown attending the ceremony is actually Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a UAE-based columnist and commentator on Arab affairs.
In his post, Vijayan said it is a disgrace for India and added the "prime minister’s party made fake news a part of their political culture".
Vijayan, who belongs to the Communist Party of India (CPI-Marxist) said this kind of activities by the ruling party media will create negative sentiments towards Indians in foreign countries.
