Dear Congress, this is why no one feels your ‘sting’

Hard cuts, inaudible voices, non-existent credibility of the ‘reporter’—these are just some of the gaping holes in the latest ‘sting operation’ shown by Kapil Sibal on April 9.

WrittenBy:Gaurav Sarkar
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At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party is bringing their A-game to campaigns in rural areas, the Congress chose to hold press conferences in the capital to highlight … well, it’s tough to put a finger on it, really.

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On Tuesday afternoon, NDTV broadcast a live stream of senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal’s press conference held at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi only to quickly cut away from it. The presser was about a series of sting operation videos.

In one of them, a man called Rahul Retharekar, allegedly a RAW official, can allegedly be seen name-dropping heavyweight BJP leaders like Amit Shah and accusing them of running a currency exchange racket of currency notes that were demonetised in 2016. He explains how this chain goes as high up as the Prime Minister’s Office and how senior party leaders receive heavy kickbacks from it.

Another video shows cardboard boxes filled with old currency being exchanged for wads of crisp ₹2,000 notes in a godown at Rabale, MIDC (Mumbai). “Retharekar also explains the detailed logistics of currency exchange controlled by BJP president Amit Shah,” said Sibal in the presser. “He explains how 26 people have been recruited from various departments specifically to oversee and coordinate with Reserve Bank of India. Rahul Retharekar also explains how the Reliance Jio database was misused to show repetitive transactions in the RBI. He confirms that new currency with Urjit Patel signatures was actually printed six months earlier.”

But remember the “US-based cyber expert” Syed Shuja who dropped bombshell after bombshell at a press conference in London earlier this year? Shuja, who was being live-streamed at the press conference, had his face hidden in the shadows so as not to reveal his identity while narrating a bone-chilling fantasy that seemed straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock film. Well, Sibal’s presser on Tuesday bore a stark resemblance to it in terms of being a wild goose chase.

At the time in London, it was Sibal by Shuja’s side, seen to be endorsing the wild claims made by him—some of which included his entire team being murdered in cold blood at a farmhouse, leaving Shuja as the only survivor who managed to get away. His team was apparently hired to “hack” the 2014 Lok Sabha election—which they allegedly managed to do—although they didn’t have full knowledge about what exactly it is that their services were being used for at the time (or so was claimed by mystery man Shuja).

Shady past

In March this year, the Opposition helmed by the Congress and Sibal spun a new narrative based on notebandi. During a press conference held on March 26, 2019, Sibal, along with other leaders from the RJD, JMM, and LJD, dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2016 DeMo move as a scam.

The allegations were based on the video of a sting operation uploaded on a website called Tricolour News Network, whose credibility, origin, and, well, even layout, is questionable at the very least. In the 30-minute video, published under the headline Tsunami of Stings Modi BJP Unmasked Part 1, a BJP worker in Gujarat offers to convert demonetised currency into new notes at a commission of 40 per cent.

Alongside the morphed voice, the clip had a disclaimer that TNN “cannot be held responsible for the content shown in this video”. The Opposition too did not authenticate the clip, insisting that they had found it in the public domain and that it was up to the public to see and decide for themselves. As of today, it still remains unclear as to who really conducted the sting and whether it was authentic at all.

New sting, equally shady

It comes as no surprise that the clips shown on Tuesday by Sibal were once again sourced from TNN. Once again, a presser was held. And once again, the Congress seems to have come off on the back foot. In one of the clips, the so-called reporter “Karan” meets alleged RAW official Rahul Retharekar and his newly-wed wife for dinner in a suite at Mumbai’s Trident Hotel. The man purported to be Retharekar is seen in the frame sitting next to his wife on a sofa. Karan has his face blurred out and is sitting on a different sofa. Judging by his silhouette, deep voice, and grey hair, he (Karan) seems like an elderly man.

Retharekar is supposed to be a field assistant in the cabinet secretariat, as shown on his ID card in the video. He supposedly explains to Karan the procedure of doing currency work and assures him that there will be no problem if he (Karan) wanted to exchange old currency that he had with him. Retharekar allegedly makes various claims and allegations, ranging from how the corrupt system will not let anyone be a true patriot for too long, and how Amit Shah is calling the shots from the top of this so-called scam of exchanging old currency.

He says that three series of ₹1 lakh crore each have been printed in duplicate, and goes on to explain how the duplicate currency notes were printed abroad were brought to India in Air Force Transport planes at Hindon Air Force base.

Rethrarekar also explains the logistics of the currency exchange operation and how it is being controlled from the very top—and names BJP bigwig Amit Shah twice—and claims that 26 people exchanged scrapped currency notes at an exchange rate of 40 per cent, and the money went to the higher-ups. According to the sting, these people have been recruited from various department specifically to oversee and coordinate with the RBI for currency exchange work only. He further alleges that there was a separate department in the PMO overseeing this work. This department was headed by a certain Nipul Sharan, which, according to the Congress, is a code name.

In the video, Retharekar says he has already completed more than ₹20,000 crore worth of private transactions from CBD Belapur as of date and explains how the Reliance Jio database has been used to show repetitive currency transactions in the RBI. He says anyone who tries to disclose this information or bring it out in the open will be “finished off” ruthlessly. Lastly, he says the new currency with Urjit Patel’s signatures was actually printed about six months earlier than November.

Where do we begin?

For starters, who is this Karan? Is he a known reporter? Can we see his credentials? Which publication or channel does he work with? Is he a whistleblower? This glaring question is something the grand old party should have answered before lending any support to the sting. For example, during Cobrapost’s “Operations 136” that exposed big media houses willing to take money in exchange for running Hindutva propaganda, the reporter “Acharya Atal” was actually Pushp Sharma, who had conducted several big stings prior to that one. His stings were published by media organisations such as Tehelka and Outlook. But our Man Friday here is an unknown quantity—so how does one take his word at face value?

One of the only ways for sting operations to be hailed as credible is when it manages to capture the sequence of events as it happened—on camera. But in this video with Retharekar, his wife, and Karan, the video is shot far away from across the room in a manner where you cannot see the movement of his (Retharekar’s) lips. It is literally impossible to ascertain and match whether he is indeed saying the words that can be heard on audio.

But the biggest red flag occurs 24 minutes and 52 seconds into the video when a mobile phone can be heard ringing. Karan gets up from his spot and walks towards the camera—where the phone presumably is—and cuts the call. He can then be seen taking a few steps back to the sofa. But then he turns around, comes back near the camera and—with zero concerns—adjusts its angle for a better view at Retharekar and his wife. In the blink of an eye, there is a hard cut that follows in the video and Retharekar and his wife are back in a much better frame than before.

What’s even fishier is both husband and wife conveniently don’t even glance in the direction of the ringing phone. Anyone’s first reaction—let alone a RAW agent who is revealing sensitive information against the government—would be to at least look towards the spot from where the phone was ringing. But they don’t, not once—not even when Karan adjusts the angle of the camera. In fact, there are several hard cuts throughout the course of the 2.5-hour-long video clip.

At 50 minutes, the angle changes once again when the trio are seen eating at the dining table. Is this truly unedited, raw footage?

Tuesday’s press conference screened bits and pieces from across eight such sting operation videos. In another video clip, Karan takes someone called Sanjay Channe—allegedly the head of IndusInd Bank in Fort, Mumbai—and Channe’s “corporate friend” Ganesh in a car to his godown in Rabale, MIDC, where he manages to exchange ₹25 crore worth in old currency. The original two-and-a-half hour clip of this alleged incident that has been uploaded on the TNN website begins with a convenient note that states that the only people present at this venue in MIDC at the time of the sting were the above mentioned three individuals accompanied by two of Ganesh’s assistants.

It reads: “Karan takes Mr Sanjay and Mr Ganesh to his godown in Rabale MIDC. The godown is fully secured by sufficient and reliable security people outside. Once there, he personally shows them the boxes containing ₹25 crore in old currency. On being satisfied, Sanjay leaves while Ganesh calls in his team to do the quality and quantity check. On completing the checking and being satisfied, they close and seal the boxes and call for the new currency/material. A van then arrives with ₹7.5 crore packed in a medium-sized aluminium box. Karan comments on the crispness of the new notes and the corporate boys confirm that the new notes have come directly from RBI in Belapur. The old notes in the cardboard boxes are loaded in the Van and the Adani Corporate. Karan confirms that he will soon be making an arrangement for the next ₹100 crore.”

But if this particular segment is watched in isolation—without taking into account the narration of its preceding video segments—the clip actually shows nothing like this.

Yes, a van enters a warehouse-type space and an aluminium box with new ₹2,000 notes are unloaded from it. But nowhere in the segment is the word “RBI” or “Belapur” even uttered. In fact, if you look at it without sound, the video simply shows two men unloading an aluminium box from a van while a man with a moustache appears to look into the box.

The strange part is, when you switch the audio on, you can hear someone, probably Karan, appearing to make a quick count of the cash in the box. In Hindi, a voice says: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 … 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…” and then in English “7, 5, 35 … 36, 37,” and then back in Hindi to “7, 40, 7.5”. Then a completely different voice conclusively says “good.”

While it’s unclear whether these numbers are in lakhs or crores, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t even show the faces of the two “assistants” who unloaded the aluminium box. Even the part where the man, presumably Ganesh, is shown is shot from behind his shoulder in a manner where his face is visible only for a second—and he looks nothing like the Ganesh shown in the earlier segments. This man’s lips cannot be seen moving, so it is safe to assume that he isn’t making the count. And when the “good” part comes, which he supposedly says, the camera conveniently points to the ground and all one can hear is a different voice from the previous counting-voice saying “good”.

If this isn’t convoluted enough, Sibal’s channel HTN News Network tweeted during the presser that “₹25 crore was exchanged by Retharekar and one Sanjay Channe, manager of IndusInd Bank” but the note at the beginning of the original 2.5-hour long clip on the TNN website does not even mention the RAW official as being present there during the sting.

The man who is being referred to as Retharekar is seen with his wife in the first video clip, yes, but in this segment, he isn’t seen or heard. Another burning question is: how does a reporter manage to get hold of ₹25 crore in demonetised notes? Why does he have access to that kind of money—demonetised or not—in the first place?

Try harder?

It’s pretty much a no-brainer as to why NDTV cut its live stream abruptly and why media organisations—irrespective of their leaning—steered clear of giving it any sort of coverage and attention. On Tuesday, Sibal had slammed Modi and the BJP and outlined a synopsis of what he was going to show. But the picture we finally got wasn’t clean or clear with recognisable elements—all we got was a piece of abstract art with haphazard brush strokes of different sizes.

Sibal went on to slam agencies like the CBI, ED, and EC, accusing them of favouring the BJP. Finally, he took a dig at the media as well. “This is the loot that has taken place in our country,” he said, while visuals of cardboard boxes filled with the old currency were being shown on the screen. “The loot that no TV channel dares to show.”

But maybe it’s time for the grand old party and its old guard Kapil Sibal to take a step back and reflect on the obvious reasons as to why their so-called sting operations don’t get much coverage. And maybe this situation is exactly why bhakts can always be heard echoing the rhetoric, “If not Modi and BJP, then who?”

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