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Nupur J Sharma

Nupur J Sharma

Affiliation: OpIndia
Vocation/ Title: Editor-in-Chief
Categories: Most Dangerous
Location: Delhi, India

Nupur J Sharma is a Hindu far-right propagandist and editor-in-chief of the Hindu militant and anti-Muslim propaganda website OpIndia, which contributes heavily to furthering hatred and violence against Muslims and other minorities in the country.

Her writings in OpIndia rely entirely on anti-Muslim propaganda and are the absolute embodiment of Islamophobia. Any random pickup from the slew of her editorials would testify to the claim.

Her full-time engagement is to denigrate Islam’s basic tenets and discredit Muslims’ every demand for justice, equality, and dignified life. Sharma, who calls herself an ‘accidental journalist,’ has been deeply engrossed in spreading anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia through OpIndia.

One of her primary skills has been to play the card of Hindu victimhood to vaporize the sufferings of the Muslims in present-day India. Almost three years after the 2019 anti-Muslim Pogrom in Delhi, Sharma presented a ‘ground report’ based on the ‘Delhi riot.’ The report, while transposing the perpetrators to the position of victims and vice versa, concluded that the ‘Delhi Riots was no anti-Muslim pogrom rather, it was a ‘well-oiled plan against Hindus’. During the pogrom, more than 50 people were killed, mostly Muslims.

She has actively propagated the spurious hoax that a ‘concerted’ demographic change is taking place in the country at the hands of the Muslims. She claims that her team documents how India is being  ‘Islamicized’ by Muslims through ‘love jihad,’ Mazars and Madrassas, and by forcefully circumcising Hindu boys.

As a devotee of Hindu majoritarianism, she advocates that “India is a land with Hindu consciousness, which will forever be a natural home for Hindus. While accepting the truth might be hard with the politically correct narrative of ‘secularism’ having diseased our discourse, the truth is that Islam as a religion was introduced in India through violent conquests and barbaric Islamic rulers who were alien to the nation.”

She peddles conspiracy theories like Love Jihad and Land Jihad to promote inter-community hatred and fear. OpIndia website has proper archives on these ‘conspiracy theories.’ Sharma has not only espoused these hateful terminologies but also attempted to redefine some of them. In an OoIndia piece dated November 18, 2020, she explains why ‘Love Jihad’ should be better called ‘Grooming Jihad.’ After classifying the phenomena of love jihad into five categories, she concludes, “Non-Muslim women are being groomed to accept their subjugation at the hands of Muslim men. They are kidnapped, raped, lured, converted to Islam, punished, and brainwashed. There is no ‘Love’ in these crimes against humanity. There is no ambiguity that it is a form of Jihad. It is time to call it what it is – Grooming Jihad.”

During the covid pandemic, her editorial desk spewed Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred at an unprecedented rate declaring Muslims to be the agents of corona outbreak in the country. Upon the orders of the Telangana High court,  when Twitter removed hateful hashtags like #TablighiJamaat, #CoronaJihad and #TotalboycottofMuslims, her editorial desk was disgusted by the move and declared it to be ‘arbitrary.’

When the Haryana police removed the name of Monu Manesar (the prime accused in the Haryana lynching case in which two Muslim youths were burnt alive by him and his gang) from the FIR (First Information Report), the OPIndia report that was shared by Sharma on Twitter celebrated the moment by portraying the notorious cow vigilante Monu Manesar as an innocent who was being implicated through some conspiracy. Notably, Manesar is still wanted by the police in multiple other cases of violence and murder.

Sharma’s penchant for Hindu extremism is no secret. One can peruse her Twitter feeds, where she continually deposits her filth and charts eulogies for well-known Islamophobes, hate-mongers, and genocide enablers. She registered her angst upon the arrest of Kalicharan Maharaj, another notorious hate monger, for shouting the sinister desires of Hindu extremism in public.

From fake news to botched-up conspiracy theories, Sharma readily grabs anything that floats her boat. Amidst the overall impunity that she enjoys in her propaganda campaign, she has been indicted more than once in connection with spreading misinformation and promoting hatred and fear.

In 2020, several brands said that they had dropped their ads from the website as the UK-based Stop Funding Hate campaign drew attention to OpIndia’s discriminatory and dehumanizing coverage of Muslims.

Multiple FIRs against her were registered in West Bengal concerning her provocative and lopsided reporting on the 2021 communal violence at Telinipara, Bhadreshwar, West Bengal. Sharma had left no stone unturned in depicting Hindus as the victim of the violence, which was an anti-Muslim riot. The FIRs were registered against her for offences under Section 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code. However, in July 2022, the Supreme Court ordered the West Bengal government to withdraw the FIRs against her, citing the importance of a free press.

In March 2023, the Tamil Nadu Police booked a case against Sharma for spreading fake news and creating a sense of fear among migrant laborers in the state under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 505 (statements conducting to public mischief).

An OpIndia report claimed,  “They (migrant laborers from Bihar) have alleged that as many as 15 people have lost their lives in the “Talibani” style attacks being carried out against the Hindi-speaking migrant laborers in the state.” The news report was found to be fictitious and sought to infuse fear among migrant workers .  Sharma could be potentially arrested in this case.