The Varanasi District Magistrate (DM) Kaushal Raj Sharma has sent a showcause notice to a journalist and his editor-in-chief after their local daily carried a report claiming that members of the Musahar community were surviving on grass at a village in the district.
The report, by journalists Vijay Vineet and Manish Mishra, had been published on 26 March in the local daily Janadesh Times, about the plight of residents at Koiripur village in Varanasi district, which falls under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, ever since the lockdown was announced Tuesday. It was accompanied by photographs of children eating grass that have since been widely shared on social media.
The notice has now been issued to Vineet and the paper’s Editor-in-Chief Subhash Rai, calling on them to publish a denial of the report. In the notice, DM Kaushal Raj Sharma states that he had got the matter investigated by an ADM-level officer and established that the report was fabricated one. He added that the Dalits are not eating grass but ankari dal (wild pulses) that grow along with wheat in the fields.
