Social media was recently brimming with allegations that JNU student leader Shehla Rashid embezzled the money crowdfunded for the family of the Kathua rape victim. The accusations reached to the extent that lawyer Vibhor Anand appealed to those who felt “cheated” by Rashid that he is planning to take legal action against her.
Several accusations of an identical nature were directed at Rashid even after the organisers of the crowdfunding, Crowdnewsing, tweeted that the money has reached the family. They provided proof of transaction by posting a photograph of the family’s passbook. The entire process was handled electronically with funds being transferred directly from Ketto into the account of the victims’ families.
Here are 3 screenshots of the #Kathua funds transferred. The passbook, the passbook entry & the proof of electronic transfer from Ketto to the family’s account. Also, since the beginning of the Campaign, we have been regularly updating everything –https://t.co/CkwBrn4toa pic.twitter.com/CNB7WHXtrD
— Crowdnewsing (@crowdnewsing) November 15, 2018
Allegations against Rashid were furthered when the student leader decided to deactivate her Twitter account citing “toxicity and hate”. Right-wing social media influencer Sonam Mahajan linked this to Rashid trying to evade questions on the “Rs 40 lakh” raised for the family of the victim, implying that it never reached them. At the time of writing this article, Mahajan’s tweet was retweeted over 7,000 times and liked over 16,000 times.
Similar allegations were floating on social media since the crowdfunding was initiated in April. That same month, Zee News’ Sudhir Chaudhary on his show ‘Daily News Analysis’ reported on the funds with the hashtag #KathuaBahanaDeshNishana (Kathua an excuse, nation a target). The broadcast was titled – “देखें, गैंगरेप पीड़ित के नाम पर लाखों का चंदा जमा करने का खेल| (Watch, the game of collecting lakhs of funds in the name of a gang rape victim).”
देखें, गैंगरेप पीड़ित के नाम पर लाखों का चंदा जमा करने का खेल #KathuaBahanaDeshNishana @sudhirchaudhary pic.twitter.com/bIA6PX7tvQ
— Zee News Hindi (@ZeeNewsHindi) April 17, 2018
“In the name of helping the parents of the child, lakhs of money are being collected from across the nation. However, the family is not receiving any help,” declared Chaudhary.
Fact: All funds have been transferred On April 13, 2018, online crowdfunding platform Crowdnewsing began the collection of funds for the family of the Kathua rape victim with the help of Ketto. The target amount was Rs 10 lakh and Shehla Rashid was one of the initiators of the campaign.
As public response was unexpectedly overwhelming, the organisers decided to extend the campaign to the Unnao rape survivor as well. Crowdnewsing published an update on their website on April 14 that the final amount would be equally distributed between the two families.
“It took some time for acquiring the PAN details of the Unnao rape survivor and getting a joint account made for the family of the Kathua rape victim. But by the end of May, both the families had received their share of Rs 18,46,774,” said Bilal Zaidi, founder of Crowdnewsing, to Alt News. The same was updated on their website on May 25.
On November 4, Crowdnewsing held a press conference to elaborate on the fund collection and its subsequent transfer step by step. To counter the incessant misinformation on social media, the portal also uploaded the statement of the Kathua victim’s family as proof that the money was transferred.
Alt News was also able to independently confirm the transfer of funds with a J&K Bank official. On the matter of a few social media users raising questions vis-a-vis the photograph of a handwritten passbook uploaded by Crowdnewsing, the official said, “Most of the J&K Bank branches in Kashmir do not issue printed passbooks but the entries are made manually.”
We also verified the transfer of funds with the family of the Unnao rape survivor. “Yes, the money was transferred to us by Crowdnewsing about 4-5 months ago and we have been able to use it,” said the survivor’s uncle Mahesh Singh.
Furthermore, we contacted former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who had donated to the crowdfunding. “Initially, I helped them [organisers of the crowdfund] get in touch with the bank because there were some formalities that needed to be completed for the account to be set up. The account was needed to transfer the money from the portal [keto] to the family. This was the extent of my involvement in the process.”
When asked about the allegations that the funds never reached the family, Abdullah said, “I haven’t seen evidence to support these claims. I have heard nothing from the family. I also tried to find out from my colleagues in the area whether there were any complaints that the funds were not made available to the family, but I heard nothing of the sort. At least from what I can gather, the ca…
