Friday, June 06, 2008

arvind kumar fingers tejpal: Explosive: Massive plagiarism by Tarun Tejpal!

jun 5th, 2008

caught with his hand in the cookie jar, tarun tejpal is.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Arvind Kumar

Explosive! Masive plagiarism by Tarun Tejpal: lifts from internet chain mails and claims work as his own!

A columnist on Rediff contacted Anil Soni, the PTI reporter named in the infamous email about how the Sabramati Express was burnt in 2002, and Anil Soni refuted the claim in the email.

See http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/14rajeev.htm for the refutation.

Any good journalist would have contacted Anil Soni to verify the facts. However, as late as Dec 2007, Tarun Tejpal has repeated the claim in the email. Not only that, he now claims that the content of the email as his ORIGINAL investigation!

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/5/explosive_report_by_indian_magazine_exposes
I mean, our investigation reveals that what seems to have happened is that on the railway station at Godhra, there was an altercation between the pilgrims and Muslim hawkers who were selling their wares on the platform. And there was, it seems, an attempt to abduct a young Muslim girl by these pilgrims. Then, in the course of it, altercation. Then, when the train leaves the station, it seems somebody pulls the chain to stop the train, and Muslim mobs from the adjoining slums arrive in large numbers and attack that particular buggy. And in the course of this entire assault, the buggy gets burned down, tragically killing these fifty-nine pilgrims.

Another example of plagiarism: The second point on the webpage above shows that Tarun Tejpal says that 2000 UNARMED Mulims and ZERO Hindus were killed in the riots that followed the burning of the train. http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/may/11guj.htm shows that 254 Hindus (actually 313 because 59 passengers were killed as well). These are the numbers given by the ant-Hindu government. So they can't even be called as motivated figures unless there are charges of inflating the number of Muslims and watering down the number of Hindus killed.

Clearly, Tejpal plagiarized this claim about 2000 Muslims and ZERO Hindus as well. Had it been original investigation, he would have arrived at a number closer to the truth. Where did Tejpal plagiarize this from? We'll let him answer although I think I know the source of this claim too.

And then there is the fictional case of the stomach of a pregnant woman being torn and a fetus being killed. That was perpetrated by Suzanne Arundhati Roy who backpedaled when asked for evidence. That claim was made in reports on Vietnam, reports on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots perpetrated by Christians like Tytler, reports on East Timor, reports on Yugoslavia, reports on Kashmir, reports on Kosovo, reports on Rwanda and many other reports. The only report in which it is probably true is the one on Moplah Massacre since that was made by bureaucrats and not interested parties.

You will agree that the reporting on Rediff can be considered to be accurate and so the numbers reported on Rediff must be true. So it clearly proves that Tarun Tejpal has plagiarized material from internet chain mails and he now claims it as his original work.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...



And then there is the fictional case of the stomach of a pregnant woman being torn and a fetus being killed. That was perpetrated by Suzanne Arundhati Roy who backpedaled when asked for evidence. That claim was made in reports on Vietnam, reports on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots perpetrated by Christians like Tytler, reports on East Timor, reports on Yugoslavia, reports on Kashmir, reports on Kosovo, reports on Rwanda and many other reports. The only report in which it is probably true is the one on Moplah Massacre since that was made by bureaucrats and not interested parties.


It takes some time for the above passage to sink in. I still can't comprehend the viciousnesses of global writing professionals. Is it a desease where such images come to people, and they just find an outlet to express it ? It speaks a lot about Suzane Arundhoty Roy . Thanks for the research.

Shahryar said...

Mr. Tarun Tejpal, CEO of Tehelka Newsmagazine, has another claim to fame - he was recently honoured by the Indian Muslim Council-USA who presented him the Moulana Muhammad Ali Johar Award in Journalism.