6 months ago
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She sinks successful her beige sofa with greenish motifs and leans connected the olive greenish cushions. In a tastefully done location decorated with Arab motifs and accepted jharokhas, she sits amid artefacts collected from antithetic parts of the satellite by her family. Attired successful casual bluish denims and a striped shirt, she juggles betwixt 2 phones and her laptop, checking for connection from her office, her lawyers and journalists’ bodies. In Navi Mumbai, the outer metropolis of Mumbai, Rana Ayyub, a 41-year aged writer moving with The Washington Post, is not a caller look for the police.
Being a writer for implicit 2 decades, she has done investigative reporting connected Gujarat riots, written connected Manipur riots, India’s Muslims, Hindu nationalism, and has received planetary designation for her publication Gujarat Files. She has faced online harassment for years and has been doxed by ‘Hindu nationalist handles’. In 2022, Ms. Ayyub was probed by the Enforcement Directorate successful an alleged wealth laundering case. She was nether the scrutiny of the Income Tax section arsenic well. By her ain account, respective cases person been filed against her successful antithetic parts of the state ‘by the right-wing trolls’.
Over the past fewer years, she has filed respective complaints with the constabulary citing harassment. Though the constabulary filed 5 archetypal accusation reports (FIRs), determination was nary further enactment connected them. The lone clip the constabulary took proactive steps was aft the execution of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, she says. The constabulary had past offered her a licence for a revolver.
Instagram station
“Journalism itself has go a menace today. I bash not cognize what has triggered this [latest] threat. The lone happening that preceded this threat, that I tin deliberation of, is my station connected Instagram [November 2, 2025] wherever I had written astir the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom,” she said. Her post, with her puerility photograph and the notation to the 1992 riots, stated, “Overnight, my household and I became Muslims – a trauma that has lived with me, shaped my nightmares, my idiosyncratic and nonrecreational life. Ironic that I americium sharing this connected the day of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Injustice begets injustice. If 1984 had been fixed justice, the perpetrators of 1992 – who destroyed my childhood, would not beryllium sitting successful the highest echelons of power,” she had said successful her post.
The aforesaid day, connected November 2, Ms. Ayyub received persistent threats connected her WhatsApp fig from a Canadian number, threatening to termination her and her father, if she did not people an op-ed successful The Washington Post glorifying the assassins of Indira Gandhi. The caller, who had the show representation of Lawrence Bishnoi, and whose sanction was listed arsenic Harry Shooter, posted her address, knew the determination of her begetter who was travelling outdoors, and made 4 video calls to her.
“I person ever called retired the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom and person openly stated respective times that had the Congress punished the culprits then, 1992 wouldn’t person happened. Being against the BJP’s anti-Muslim stance does not mean I americium pro-Congress, and I won’t telephone retired what they did wrong. A journalist’s occupation is not to instrumentality sides. It is to archer the truth,” she said. “I was saved by a Sikh household during the anti-Muslim pogrom successful Mumbai. And I person ever remained grateful to them,” she added.
While she has taken an unfastened nationalist stance against the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, overmuch to the chagrin of the Congress leadership, she said, she present fails to recognize wherefore she should beryllium a taxable of surveillance and menace by the Khalistanis. “I don’t adjacent cognize if these are the Khalistanis oregon immoderate heavy authorities actors. I truly privation to cognize who is doing this to me. I person been requesting the constabulary to registry an FIR, but they haven’t done it truthful far,” she said.
“I panicked arsenic the idiosyncratic [who called connected November 2] knew the nonstop determination of my begetter and the information that helium was travelling. I reached retired to Navi Mumbai police. When I persisted connected filing an FIR, an authoritative said, ‘Don’t deliberation excessively much. A Khalistani successful Uttar Pradesh indispensable person seen your father.’ I didn’t cognize what to say. I was dumbstruck. This does not marque sense. I don’t adjacent cognize if the idiosyncratic is from Lawrence Bishnoi gang, oregon a beforehand for immoderate authorities actor, oregon anyone else. At different times, I would person ignored it. But the information that this idiosyncratic knew my nonstop address, the determination of my household members, made maine fearfulness that determination was surveillance involved. I americium frightened for myself, for the information of my family,” she said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed interest for her safety, seeking constabulary extortion for her. “But hide giving maine constabulary security, they haven’t adjacent registered an FIR arsenic yet,” she says, showing the copies of the complaints she has written. The constabulary person registered a non-cognisable offence [which the constabulary cannot analyse without tribunal nod] , arsenic per section reports. She does not cognize it. Apart from an acknowledgement connected her statement, she does not person immoderate different document.
Narrating however she was followed and video recorded during her reporting successful Manipur past year, however she was doxed (to publically exposure someone’s backstage identifying accusation online without their consent, often to shame, intimidate, oregon harm them) by a pro-Hindutva grip which led to intelligence harassment owed to unending calls and intimidation, she said the incidents haven’t stopped. Police complaints person not helped either. “The constabulary bash not enactment against the main culprits,” she said.
This time, she does not privation to instrumentality it lightly. “I feel, my full household is vulnerable. May it beryllium my young nephew oregon my parents. I got panic attacks the time I received these video calls. I did not prosecute and I blocked the fig thereafter. But idiosyncratic needs to find retired who this idiosyncratic is. I request to cognize who is doing this to me,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Navi Mumbai Police said that they were doing forensic probe connected the ground of an NC (non-cognisable offence) registered successful the matter. “We person taken support to analyse the NC,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Pankaj Dahane said. Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Milind Bharambe said forensic probe was going connected successful the substance arsenic it was a VoIP telephone with an planetary number. ”But if it is simply a Canada number, determination volition beryllium challenges,” helium said.
