Hours after India Today decided to put their Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai off-air for two weeks over spreading fake news during the Tractor Rally riots, he has reportedly quit the channel. According to a report, in Opindia, Rajdeep Sardesai was found guilty of spreading two major fake news in just one week, after which he was suspended for two weeks by the media house.Earlier in the day, media reports suggested that he was taken off-air by India Today and also faced one-month salary cut. Reportedly, India Today has taken the unprecedented step to penalise the senior journalist violated social media policies of the media house several times. As per the report published, the suspension and salary cut, turned out to be a big humiliation for the senior journalist. However, in the absence of any official confirmation from either India Today or Rajdeep Sardesai,the news remains a piece of conjecture.
On Republic Day, during the Tractor Rally that went violent, Sardesai had tweeted an image of the protestor Navneet and declared that he was shot at by Delhi Police. He had tweeted, “one person, 45-year-old Navneet killed allegedly in police firing at ITO.” In a bid to pump up emotions, he had added, “Farmers tell me: the ‘sacrifice’ will not go in vain.” He had also tweeted a picture of the deceased’s body covered in the Indian tricolour. However, Navneet had died after the tractor he was driving to break police barricades turned turtle. He died instantly, as per reports. After it was pointed out to him on Twitter, he had deleted the tweet.Later, when he went live on India Today, he repeated the lie and said that the farmer was shot in the head by police. He claimed that Navneet Singh was driving the tractor and he was “shot in the head” and suffered a bullet injury that resulted in his death.Earlier on 23rd January, Sardesai had also joined to accuse the President of India of unveiling the wrong portrait of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. After the official Twitter handle of the Rashtrapati Bhavan had posted the image of portrait on the occasion of 125th birth anniversary of the freedom fighter, several journalists and opposition leaders had alleged that the portrait was of actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, who had played the role of Bose in a movie.