Sudarshan News invents communal angle in Faridabad murder; falsely reports that accused were Muslims

by Pawan Kumar

Trigger Warning: Graphic Descriptions of Violence

On January 9, 2025, Right-wing propaganda outlet Sudarshan News ran a video showing a deceased young man as a ‘breaking news’ post on its X handle and YouTube channel, and claimed that Jihadis had killed a Hindu youth in ‘Taliban style’. The outlet claimed the victim’s fingers and toes were severed, eyes and nails were pulled out, and his head was separated from his body. Along with this, Sudarshan News uploaded another video on its YouTube channel with a similar claim in which mentioned that that Deepak was killed because he had witnessed the rape of a Hindu girl by the son of the accused, Fakruddin, and his 12 friends. (Archived link 1, link 2, link 3)

Readers should note that Alt News has fact-checked the false and communal claims circulated by Sudarshan News several times in the past.

Facebook user Ravi Shukla shared the video report by Sudarshan News and made a similar claim. (Archived link)

Deepak Sharma, a verified X handle often found spreading false communal information, shared a photo and claimed that Deepak was brutally murdered by Anwar, Abdul and Rashid in Faridabad, Haryana, because Deepak had become a witness in a rape case against them. (Archived link)

Several other verified X handles including @NadeemHere_ and Avkush Singh Malik also shared photos and videos with similar claims. (Archived link 1, link 2)

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Fact Check

Alt News observed that the Faridabad Police, in its reply to a now-deleted tweet by Avkush Singh Malik, wrote that Deepak was not involved in any gangrape case. They clarified there were no eyewitnesses in the incident and requested social media users to not spread any misleading news by linking it to a particular community, as doing so may have a negative impact on the society.

Following this, we performed a keyword search, which led us to a news report by Dainik Bhaskar from January 13, 2025. According to this report, this case is from Faridabad’s Adarsh ​​Nagar where the body of Deepak, who had gone missing on December 16, 2024, was recovered on January 8, 2025. Faridabad Police arrested Deepak’s friend Karan on charges of murdering him.

Assistant commissioner (Crime) Aman Yadav told Dainik Bhaskar that Deepak’s brother Dilip had filed a missing report on December 17. He stated that Deepak had left home on December 16 and did not return. The complainant accused 14 Muslims in the area of ​​murder.

The report also states that Deepak and the accused, Karan, were friends. Karan reportedly had two wives, and he suspected Deepak of having a relationship with his first wife, due to which the accused and the deceased had a quarrel in the past. According to police, Karan got Deepak drunk, hit him on the head, strangled him with a scarf and threw his body in the bushes.

Faridabad Police tweeted a video on January 14, 2025 and revealed that Deepak’s friend Karan has been arrested in his murder case. Deepak was killed due to mutual enmity and an alleged illicit relationship with Karan’s first wife.

Along with this, we also came across an updated report by Dainik Bhaskar related to this case from January 19, 2025. According to this report, a second accused named Pramod alias Golu had been arrested for Deepak’s murder. Pramod admitted that he and Karan had killed Deepak by hitting him on the head with a stone.

To sum it up, Deepak was killed by his friends Karan and Pramod due to personal enmity and both accused are Hindus, but Sudarshan News shared this incident with a false communal spin.

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