New Delhi: All states have information departments to issue the official line on any subject. But only in ‘atmanirbhar’ Uttar Pradesh did the government feel the need to enlist the services of a public relations firm to pressure its controversial claim that the 19-year-old Dalit woman who was gang raped last month in Hathras and succumbed to wounded on September 29, she was not raped at all.
On Thursday night, several foreign correspondents in India received a ‘clarification note’ from Concept PR, a Mumbai-based public relations firm with the ungrammatical headline:
“The girl from Hathras was not raped, reveals forensic investigation, preliminary and post-mortem medical report”
The note also highlighted other claims, such as:
“The reports also revealed the conspiracy to push the state into caste confusion”
“SIT will surely reveal the evil design behind the whole incident”
And in an alleged reference to the government’s decision to quickly cremate the victim’s body in the middle of the night against his family’s wishes, the note reads:
Police action was swift to prevent adverse incidents – more intensive investigation into the matter
The public relations note goes on to reiterate what the UP deputy director general (ADG) of the police (law and order), Prashant Kumar, had already told the Indian media:
“To put an end to all speculation, the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) report on the vaginal swab of the 19-year-old from Hathras has revealed that she was not raped. This is the conclusive confirmation report after the post-mortem medical report and post-mortem report have concluded that no violation was committed. “
While the UP government’s claim that “the Hatras girl was not raped (d)” has been questioned by medical and legal experts who say that the state police clearly do not understand the definition of rape in the Criminal Code of the India or the basics of forensic rape medicine, the public relations note makes clear that the ongoing investigation will focus less on the crime of Hathras and its perpetrators and more on the alleged “conspiracy to push the state into confusion. of castes “that the ADG says the forensic report had” exposed. “
The ‘clarification note’ also specifies that the Special Investigation Team assigned by Prime Minister Adityanath to investigate the matter “will surely reveal the evil designs of vested interests who wanted to create an atmosphere of discord in Uttar Pradesh.”
The UP Police “will now investigate who was responsible for this campaign in bad faith and misrepresented the facts despite the statements of the officials responsible to the contrary.”
This particular mention in the press release should be read as a warning to the national media that have reported the Hathras incident as a gang rape, citing the family, or they would continue to follow up on the story as such, in addition to sending a warning to foreign correspondents to stay away from him.
The broader message also seems to be that in ‘New India’ rapes do not occur, certainly none that reflects the harsh reality of caste injustices. And that any global attention to this case, similar to the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case, when the Congress-led UPA was in power, will not be acceptable. In any case, the government is likely to view global media coverage as part of a “conspiracy”, an “evil plan” against the UP and India.
This public relations move was likely due to the fact that the rape victim’s death made the headlines of several international newspapers, including the New York Times and the guardian. The Adityanath government urgently needed a media strategy to nip this coverage in the bud, and also give some ammunition to the BJP’s NRI supporters to defend the party on social media and elsewhere.
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