Delhi. On 27 February 2020, when the fires of the Delhi riots were raging, Rajdeep Sardesai aired a ‘breaking’ segment on India Today. Tahir Hussain – from whose rooftop a shower of petrol bombs was being rained down – claimed, “I wasn’t at home, a mob was trying to enter my house, the police saved me!” Rajdeep ji gave it the name of an ‘interview’ and amplified it. He showed the video, spoke in an emotional voice, as if an innocent victim was being targeted by police brutality.
Wow! What journalism! Handing a victim card to a man from whose roof violence was being orchestrated. Later it emerged that Tahir Hussain was an AAP councillor against whom charges of arson, murder, and inciting riots were filed. In July 2026, a Delhi court convicted him in the murder of IB officer Ankit Sharma – rioting, promoting enmity, murder. Stones and bombs were hurled from his rooftop, the crowd was incited, yet in Rajdeep ji’s eyes, Tahir was the ‘victim’.
I had the chance to speak with people living near Tahir’s house. They were narrating the full story but were terrified of speaking on camera. “We have to live here. Our homes, shops, families – everything is here. There could be danger to our lives if we say anything.” Such was the fear Tahir had instilled in the people around him.
People like Rajdeep, who built their so-called journalism by bowing before big leaders, and whose wife has been duly rewarded for her sycophancy by the Trinamool Congress. When such fallen journalists call others “Godi Media”, it feels like they are spitting at the sky while looking upwards at their own faces.
This is the same Rajdeep Sardesai who needs to be introduced as “Sardesai’s son” and “English-speaking anchor” before the word ‘journalist’ is even uttered. Father’s name, good English, and a channel ID – these are his only qualifications. Ground reporting? No. Just saying “Sir” to big leaders, taking interviews, and doing drama for TRPs. Labelling anti-national forces as “farmers” during the farm protests, thrusting a communal angle on CAA-NRC, and the old game of blaming the police and BJP in the Delhi riots.
What do you call putting an accused like Tahir Hussain on screen and creating a drama of “mob attack”? It is a conspiracy to defame the system. While the facts were screaming – Tahir’s house was the ‘command centre’ of the riots. Witnesses said the crowd was incited, Hindus were targeted. But in Rajdeep ji’s ‘neutral’ journalism, all this was ‘one-sided’. Questions for the police, suspicion on the crowd, and sympathy for the accused.
If this is not shamelessness, then what is? When riots were happening in the country, some ‘secular’ anchors tried to set a narrative by painting Tahir as the victim. Today, when the court has pronounced him guilty, why is there a lock on their mouths? Because the truth goes against their ‘liberal’ agenda.
People like Rajdeep Sardesai have turned journalism into a business — where facts don’t sell, only ‘narratives’ do. Father’s name, fluent English, and a channel microphone – these are their real ‘credentials’.
The country is watching. When such ‘journalists’ try to shield convicts like Tahir Hussain, the real victims — the innocent people killed in the Delhi riots – keep yearning for justice. Rajdeep ji, have some shame. Or has shame also been sold in the market?