Reacting for the first time to the forgery case filed against journalist Pushp Sharma for allegedly fabricating RTI documents to show that the AYUSH Ministry was discriminating against Muslim yoga teachers, Union Minister of State Shripad Naik said that his Ministry was a victim of “false propaganda”.
Speaking to The Pioneer on the sidelines of an AYUSH Expo held on Saturday on the outskirts of the State, Naik also said that his Ministry had not recruited any yoga teachers at all in 2015 and therefore the question of bias against yoga teachers of a particular religion did not arise.
“That was false propaganda,” Naik said. The Minister further said that Sharma, had asked under the Right To Information act about how many yoga teachers were selected by AYUSH Ministry in 2015 and out of the 711 Muslim candidates who had applied, how many had candidates had been rejected.
“I said not a single person had been selected, so the question of choosing Hindus or Muslims does not arise... Therefore, he added an annexure to our RTI response and fabricated documents. We have filed a case,” Naik said.
“The Indian Government has no such policy (of discrimination). Our policy is to take everyone together,” Naik said.
Delhi-based journalist Pushp Sharma was booked by the police in the national capital earlier this month for allegedly adding fabricated inputs to an RTI reply by the AYUSH Ministry to his query on recruitment of Muslim yoga teachers by the union Ministry.
The registration of the FIR under section 153 A of the Indian Penal Code followed a formal complaint made by the AYUSH Ministry to the Delhi Police.
The AYUSH Ministry had earlier described the fabrication as “mischievous misinformation being spread in certain section of media and social media” “aimed at causing chasm between different sections of society and disharmony and mistrust with ulterior motives”.
Sharma however had claimed that the complaint against him was an attempt by AYUSH Ministry to muzzle him.
“They can’t politically accept they don’t recruit Muslims as yoga trainers as they have to portray a secular image, but if you file an RTI and ask for numbers, there are no numbers to show,” Sharma told reporters in the national capital after he was questioned by the police, which is investigating the case.