‘i was branded because i bear a muslim name’
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_Times Now_ Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami has made news yet again for calling Asad Ashraf, a _Tehelka_ journalist, a cover for Indian Mujahideen on the The Newshour on May 23. Ashraf, 28,
was one of the six panelists on Goswami’s show debating the ISIS video featuring Muhammad ‘Bada’ Sajid — one of the Indian Mujahideens behind the bombings of 2008 that killed more than 160
people in New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. Delhi Special Cell had earlier claimed that Bada Sajid had escaped during the Batla House encounter. Ashraf, an alumnus of Jamia Millia Islamia,
had questioned the credibility of Batala House through his stories in _Tehelka_. He also questioned the authenticity of the ISIS video aired by _Times Now_. Goswami, responded to this not
very surprisingly: “You guys were a cover for Indian Mujahideens,” he said. Goswami also called the journalist a “pseudo-intellectual” and “pseudo-secular. He added that, “You don’t know how
dangerous the game is that you are playing in the name of pseudo-secularism.” _Newslaundry _spoke to Ashraf on the incident. Here’s what he had to say: “It was absolutely ridiculous on his
[Goswami’s] part to call me an IM sympathiser just because of the fact that I questioned the authenticity of the Batla House encounter and the IS video.” He further added that the IS video
should have gone for a forensic test before being aired on the channel. “It was easier for Arnab to target me because of the fact because I bear a Muslim name,” he said.