India flooded with fake news about Nijjar murder suspects

In India, millions of people woke up Thursday to a deluge of news falsely claiming that the four Indian nationals accused of murdering Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023 had been released after the legal case concerning them collapsed.

This information was covered by numerous media, including the Times of India (New window)who headlined his article saying that four defendants were released.

CBC/- has confirmed that this information is false. None of the defendants in the Nijjar case have left prison and are not expected to do so.

It is not true that the four accused were released on bailsaid Ann Seymour of the British Columbia Prosecution Service. All four defendants were taken into custody and remain in custody.

The next court appearance is a pre-trial conference which will take place on February 11, and they will also appear in court on February 12.

Social media rumors

Among the Indian media which took up this false information, there is the Hindu Postthe First Postthe Hindustan Times, Business Today, Business Standard, India Today, The New Indian Express, Mint News et News 18.

The information allegedly came from Canadian social media accounts that were based on an erroneous reading of court documents. One of the publications, on X, has been viewed nearly 300,000 times.

Last November, Crown prosecutors transferred the case from the Provincial Court of British Columbia to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, leading to the suspension of the legal proceedings in Provincial Court.

The province’s online court records show the original provincial court case was stayed, leading to misinterpretations and false claims that the men had been released from custody.

Several media outlets in India have linked this information to an alleged collapse of the Canadian police case against the four men, Karan Brar, Amandeep Singh, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh, or to the supposed inability of the Canadian police, unconsciousto oppose their release on bail.

The media Pick up

Critics of the government of Narendra Modi have pointed to the erosion of journalistic standards and press freedom as one of the consequences of his populist, Hinduist and nationalist style of government.

The country has witnessed the emergence of a media Pick up aggressively partisan, which adheres closely to the narratives of the Modi government and sometimes targets perceived enemies of that government with slanderous or poorly substantiated reporting.

Some of the media outlets that picked up the false information about those accused of Nijjar’s murder fit Godi’s media profile, others did not.

The Times of Indiawhich has been around for 186 years and is the world’s largest-circulation English-language newspaper, does not appear to have fact-checked social media, any more than its more oriented counterparts in the Indian media scene.

Relations with India at rock bottom

The allegations and arrests linked to Nijjar’s murder caused an unprecedented breakdown in relations between Canada and India, with mutual expulsions significantly reducing diplomatic presence in both countries.

Canada said India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and five other diplomats persona non grata in October, after the GRC accused the Modi government of fomenting a campaign of violence and intimidation in Canada, including acts of murder, arson, extortion and assault.

According to CBC/-, investigators are also looking into a possible link between the four accused of Nijjar’s murder, along with other suspects, and four other murders in Canada, including that of an 11-year-old boy.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot and killed in British Columbia outside the Sikh temple he led in June 2023.

With information from Evan Dyer