As India witnessed a series of diplomatic escalations yesterday following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s explosive allegation of a potential link between the Indian government and the killing of the Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, the social media also got flooded with several speculations and rumours of domestic repurcussions.
Netizens on social microblogging site X (formerly Twitter) started making unsubstantiated claims that following Trudeau’s allegation, the Indian Army started denying leaves to Sikh soldiers. People also claimed that Sikh security personnel at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President of India’s official residence, have also been replaced.
Tweets making such allegations were posted on September 19, a day when there was a special session at the new Parliament building.
However, rigorous fact-checking and confirmation by a Defence Ministry spokesperson made it explicitly clear that the allegations against the Indian Army were entirely baseless
Refuting all the allegations, the Additional Directorate General of Public Information wrote on X that all the purported tweets disseminated “fake messages” on social media and also mentioned that certain inimical agents with an intention to spread rumours and hate-mongering were behind the chaos. The post also asked the public to safeguard itself against “such fake news”.
The Press Information Bureau also clarified that no such decision has been taken. It noted that such baseless allegations were “shared with the intention to create disharmony”.
