CNN-IBN Editor Facing Heat After Photoshopped Communal Images & Bigoted Comments

During the Indian PM Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia for a bi-lateral visit to promote trade, jobs, worker human rights and help find common ground, a news editor for CNN-IBN (IBNLive.com), using the unverified twitter handle @aarsee and name Raghav Chopra, faced a Twitter storm after being accused of posting obvious photo-shopped images of PM Modi bowing and touching Saudi royalty’s feet. Touching someone’s feet in India (mainly among Hindus) is a symbol of the utmost respect and has been practiced by Hindus worldwide for thousands of years. The picture suggests that India is bowing down to Saudi royalty to do whatever they want and helps to fuel hatred among extremists. There were tweets following the posting by Islamists cheering the image as it portrayed Hindus being slaves to the Islamic Republic of Saudi Arabia. Many BJP (the political party PM Modi belongs to) activists on Twitter also were offended as the original image was doctored from an image where Modi is touching the feet of one of the oldest members of his party, LK Advani.

On April 3, a screenshot of tweets using the handle @aarsee with the name Raghav Chopra were being shared all over Twitter exposing the biases held by many top Media journalists in India, as well as their hypocrisy as many of India’s leading journalists have even suggested prosecution for anyone that shares viral images which could disrupt the social fabric & harmony of the nation. Over the last few years, it isn’t uncommon to see many Indians tweeting with hashtags like#paidmedia that highlight obvious media biases targeting specific political parties or even communities such as Hindus by leading Indian media outlets. By Sunday afternoon, activists on Twitter, including politicians, celebrities and human rights activists continued to share other screenshots by the same twitter account with other recent tweets that were offensive to many Hindus & Indians. One additional tweet suggested the popular years-old phrase that translates to Mother India (Bharat Mata Ki Jai) as silly as India was technically a Male in its use of name.

This isn’t the first time CNN-IBN senior staff have faced controversy around bigoted, communal and hinduphobic statements. One of their most known personalities Rajdeep Sardesai has been under hot water dozens of times for offending Hindus with insensitive comments and criticisms that isolated the BJP party while denying criticism of any other political party. Rajdeep was even caught on video at a Modi rally in New York where he physically assaulted a rally participant after being called an elitist. He eventually left CNN-IBN in 2014.

Our staff tried reaching out to the handle @aarsee that identifies as CNN-IBN editor Raghav Chopra on Twitter to verify his participation, but could not get a hold of him as by late Sunday he had modified his public account status to protected-status, while removing public references to any connections with CNN-IBN. However, we could confirm that there is a Raghav Chopra connected with CNN-IBN via a LinkedIn account that states a Mr.Chopra has been a News Editor for CNN-IBN since July 2013. The LinkedIn also states that Mr.Chopra was Deputy News Editor at Hindustan Times before that.