Missing JNU Student Najeeb’s Mother Sues Media for ‘IS Link’ Story

Fatima Nafees has filed a defamation suit against Times of India, Times Now, Dilli Aajtak and the India Today group.

Najeeb Ahmed’s mother Fatima Nafees

(Photo: IANS)

Missing JNU student’s Najeeb Ahmed’s mother filed a defamation suit against a clutch of media houses for naming her son an ‘ISIS symapthiser’, and indicating that he had links to the terrorist organisation.

According to a Live Law report, Ahmed’s mother Fatima Nafees, on Tuesday, filed a suit through the Human Rights Law network against the Times of India, Times Now, Dilli Aajtak, and reporters of the India Today group, seeking damages of Rs 2.2 crores.

Nafees in her suit claimed that a Times of India article dated March 2017 quoted police sources as saying that Najeeb was looking for information on IS a day before his disappearance on 14 October 2016.

Nafees claimed that the ToI reporter, in his article, said that a ‘highly placed source’ in the Delhi police alleged, on the basis of forensic analysis, that Najeeb’s search history indicated he was listening to an IS leader’s speech the night before he disappeared.

She further added that even though the police later claimed that nothing in the investigation had suggested that Najeeb could be linked with IS, the media houses failed to retract their stories incriminating him.

Despite the Delhi police issuing both a statement to the press and a rejoinder explicitly and unambiguously refuting and contradicting the impugned news report, the media house has neither retracted the news report/telecast nor published an apology for the false and malicious reporting.

Nafees in her suit

She said that Times Now later ran a segment with tickers like “Najeeb an IS sympathizer?”, based off the ToI report.

Nafees also said that she had refrained from filing the suit earlier keeping in mind her son’s best interest, especially in light of the widespread media coverage.

It is at the cost of this pathetic attempt to boost their readership that she (Fatima) was subjected to utter humiliation and mental agony which is rooted in the fact that the investigation of her son’s disappearance is still on-going and that news items such as this poison and prejudice the mindset of the public at large.

Nafees in her suit

According to the Live Law report, the suit seeks an immediate retraction of the said stories and damages of Rs 2.2 crores.