She sinks in her beige sofa with green motifs and juggles between two phones and her laptop, checking for communication from her office, her lawyers and journalists’ bodies. In Navi Mumbai, the satellite city of Mumbai, Rana Ayyub, a 41-year old journalist working with The Washington Post, is not a new face for the police.
Being a journalist for over two decades, she has done investigative reporting on Gujarat riots, written on Manipur riots, India’s Muslims, Hindu nationalism, and has received international recognition for her book Gujarat Files. She has faced online harassment for years and has been doxed by ‘Hindu nationalist handles’. In 2022, Ms. Ayyub was probed by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case. She was under the scrutiny of the Income Tax department as well. By her own account, several cases have been filed against her in different parts of the country ‘by the right-wing trolls’.
Over the last few years, she has filed several complaints with the police citing harassment. Though the police filed five first information reports (FIRs), there was no further action on them. The only time the police took proactive steps was after the murder of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, she says. The police had then offered her a licence for a revolver.
Instagram post
“Journalism itself has become a threat today. I do not know what has triggered this [latest] threat. The only thing that preceded this threat, that I can think of, is my post on Instagram [November 2, 2025] where I had written about the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom,” she said. Her post, with her childhood photo and the reference to the 1992 riots, stated, “Overnight, my family and I became Muslims – a trauma that has lived with me, shaped my nightmares, my personal and professional life. Ironic that I am sharing this on the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Injustice begets injustice. If 1984 had been given justice, the perpetrators of 1992 – who destroyed my childhood, would not be sitting in the highest echelons of power,” she had said in her post.
The same day, on November 2, Ms. Ayyub received persistent threats on her WhatsApp number from a Canadian number, threatening to kill her and her father, if she did not publish an op-ed in The Washington Post glorifying the assassins of Indira Gandhi. The caller, who had the display picture of Lawrence Bishnoi, and whose name was listed as Harry Shooter, posted her address, knew the location of her father who was travelling outdoors, and made four video calls to her.
“I have always called out the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom and have openly stated several times that had the Congress punished the culprits then, 1992 wouldn’t have happened. Being against the BJP’s anti-Muslim stance does not mean I am pro-Congress, and I won’t call out what they did wrong. A journalist’s job is not to take sides. It is to tell the truth,” she said. “I was saved by a Sikh family during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Mumbai. And I have always remained grateful to them,” she added.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
