How fake news prompted Paresh Rawal to comment against Arundhati Roy and later delete it

Earlier this week, veteran actor Paresh Rawal started trending on social media for the wrong reasons after he posted a derogatory comment against author Arundhati Roy. He said, “Instead of tying stone pelter on the army jeep tie Arundhati Roy!” He was referring to the 9 April incident where the Indian Army tied an alleged stone pelter to their vehicle to save themselves from stone pelters in Kashmir. 

Few days ago, too, the actor posted a couple of tweets against her saying, “70 lakh Indian army can't defeat azadi gang of Kashmir - Arundhati Roy .Her birth certi in fact is a regret letter from maternity ward . is such a toxic ...Her birth certificate must be a regret letter from maternity ward !”

Rawal is apparently infuriated because of Roy's statement: “70 lakh army cannot defeat Azadi gang of Kashmir.” 

However, it turns out that Roy had never made such a comment. There is not a single news publication that has carried any such news. 

Rawal had reacted to a Facebook post by a pro-Right Wing page called The Indian Nationalist. The page had carried a news written by postcard.news. A number of publications carried the news about Rawal’s remarks. And since the actor had reacted to a comment (supposedly) made by Roy, they assumed that the author had made the comment. Top TV news channels, too, slammed Roy for supposedly making the statement. A number of shows and debates were held against the author. 

But it turns out that postcard.news is not a reliable news website, but a blog created to spread Right Wing propaganda. The news was carried as it is by similar blogs like satyavijayi.com, internethindu.in and theresurgentindia.com. 

Interestingly, The Indian Nationalist has now deleted the Facebook post to which Rawal had reacted. Not just this, even Rawal has deleted the tweet against Roy. 

In a statement, he said that he was pressurised by Twitter to delete it. “With this letter, I inform all my supporters and citizens of this country that I am being coerced to delete something I tweeted on May 21, or else Twitter would block my account,” he said.