The dark underbelly of YouTube ‘news’ channels: Staged vox pop, planted debates, recurring faces & BJP links – Alt News

In July, after self-styled godman Premanand Maharaj made some sexist remarks on women who are involved with multiple men, a video of two women’s reaction to the controversy grabbed much attention on social media.

In the 41-second ‘vox pop’ video (added below), the lady in the blue kurta seemed to defend the misogynistic remarks and went as far as shaming and using derogatory terms for women who have multiple partners.

Madam didn’t hesitate 😬😬😬pic.twitter.com/TUF7Hzn7Rs

— Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj (@DeepikaBhardwaj) August 18, 2025

The video went viral with many people claiming that the lady ‘gave it back’ to other women criticising Premanand Maharaj and clearly saying what needed to be said.

But here’s where things got interesting.

The same woman actually appeared in several public reaction or ‘vox pop’ videos by one particular news outlet, in which she shared similarly explosive retorts. A vox pop video aims to represent public views by presenting a diverse range of opinions. However, by deploying the same person repeatedly, the channel was clearly staging these.

And this was just the tip of the iceberg. As Alt News dug deeper, we uncovered a whole network of such channels with thousands of subscribers, which were making these ‘set-up’ videos that seemed like they were genuine representations of unfiltered public views. Owing to the sensational nature of opinions presented here, they would often go viral, raking up views in thousands. 

We found at least 10 ‘news’ channels on YouTube with thousands of subscribers that produced such staged vox-pop videos that either promoted pro-BJP or pro-Hindutva narratives. The months-long investigation, in which we examined the ‘reports’ by these YouTube channels, unearthed a syndicate of channels that had several recurring ‘participants’. As we dug out details of the participants and the channels’ promoters, we also found links to the BJP.

National News Hindi

We first came across this channel from the viral clip shared by X user @DeepikaBhardwaj on Premanand Maharaj’s remarks. We noticed the outlet’s name on the mic and found the full interview on YouTube.

The channel that shared the video, National News Hindi, described itself as an “analysis of any news, public opinion, and public reactions”. It had over 120,000 subscribers.  We noticed that most of the videos shared by it were vox pop interviews. 

On reviewing other videos posted by the channel, we noticed that the woman in the blue kurta in the above-mentioned video appeared in several of them; each time as part of the crowd that just happened to be present at the spot. 

Here’s one video from April 21. This was after protests against the Waqf Amendment Bill turned violent in West Bengal’s Murshidabad. National News Hindi posted a reaction video where the same woman appeared. On camera, she introduced herself as Riddhima Sharma and, throughout the video, made anti-Muslim statements, going as far as calling the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, ‘Mamata Bano’ (‘Bano’ is an Urdu suffix added for Muslim women). 

She again made an appearance on the channel in a video shared on October 4, where she was seen sharing her thoughts on the violence that erupted in Bareilly in the aftermath of the ‘I love Muhammad’ protests. The protests came after the Kanpur police filed an FIR for the “I Love Muhammad” hoarding put up for a procession in Bareilly.

In the video, she hailed Uttar Pradesh police and CM Yogi Adityanath for his ‘bulldozer action’ and promptness in dealing with the protestors, whom she referred to as ‘dangayi’ (rioters). 

We then tried to find her socials using her name Riddhima Sharma and came across a Meta-verified Instagram profile @itsriddhi_417, which appeared to belong to her, going by the media she shared. The account had over 228,000 followers. In her bio, she described herself as a ‘Reel creator’; however, majority of the reels available on this page are from similar vox pop interviews with different channels. In the other posts she shared, she clearly had pro-BJP and pro-Right stances. 

We also found another Instagram page of hers, @hinduladki_riddhi01, in which her bio alluded to her being a “sanatani” and “an unapologetic Hindu. On this page, Riddhima had over 79,000 followers, and the content posted was similar to what was shared on @itsriddhi_417. 

This made it clear that Riddhima Sharma was not someone who just happened to be at the scene where these vox pop videos were shot. It seemed as though she was planted at these venues and sought by the National News Hindi team and their anchor, Amnisha Pal, for her views. 

But that’s not all. While perusing the channel’s content, we found that Riddhima Sharma wasn’t the only person recurrently appearing in their videos. At least five to seven others repeatedly featured in these videos.

Planted Speakers?

Here’s one video from October 4 on the same ‘I love Muhammad’ poster controversy.

In this, a man in a turban appeared when the anchor, Amnisha Pal, was interviewing two people in the crowd. He said that no one had a problem with the ‘I love Muhammad’ posters or ‘I love Mahadev’ posters, but the issue was with the ‘rioters’ who attacked the administration. This interview took place at the same location as the one where Riddhima Sharma had spoken on the same issue. The man in the turban then said that Indian Muslims should boycott such ‘rioters’ and ‘terrorists’ and refuse them funerals and burial spaces. The anchor then went to each Muslim who stood there, asking them if they agreed.

Just like in the case of Riddhima Sharma, we found that the same man in the turban above featured in another video on the same channel on August 29. This interview was on Premanand Maharaj’s controversial remarks.

When the anchor asked a man in the crowd whether he supported or rejected what the godman said about women’s choices, he said that India was a free country and women were independent, so they should do as they please. When some in the crowd strongly opposed his views and went on to bait him to answer whether he would allow his daughters to wear what they wanted, he countered by saying that then the government should bring in laws on what one can or cannot wear. At this point, the man in the turban stepped into the conversation and retorted, “These are the kind of people who would go on to say that there is dictatorship in the country… They will talk about vote chori and say that the Election Commission, the Supreme Court, police are all controlled by the centre…” The turbaned man then went on to hail Premanand Maharaj.

We found this person appearing in several other videos by National News Hindi. In one video from April 27, in which he shares his views on the Pahalgam terror attack, he introduces himself as ‘Ashmit Bhai’.

On Instagram, ‘Ashmit Bhai’ or @sardaar_ashmit_singh has over 103,000 followers and describes himself as a ‘Public figure’ and the general secretary of Nationalist Congress Party Sewa Dal. While he did not specify which faction of the NCP he is part of, images shared by him suggest that he is involved with the Ajit Pawar faction, which is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Like Riddhima Sharma’s, his page too mostly had of clips from vox pop interviews with various channels.

Another recurring face on National News Hindi is Rahul Mehta (@rahul_metha15). He appeared in a video the channel posted on October 8, where, while sharing his views on the protests after the ‘I love Muhammed’ poster controversy, he mocks Muslims for hesitating to use the term ‘Bharat Mata’ for the nation. The channel posted 16 videos on the poster issue.

In the above video, when anchor Amnisha Pal egged on a Muslim man by asking him why he couldn’t use the term ‘Bharat Mata’ for the nation, another Muslim man, part of the same crowd, asks her about the need to use the suffix ‘Mata’. “I have only one ‘Mata’, the one who gave me birth,” he says. It is at this point that Rahul Mehta joined in the conversation and mocked the Muslim men for being hesitant to say ‘Bharat Mata’. He also listed names of ‘good Muslims’, such as Dr A P J Abdul Kalam and Col. Sofia Qureshi.

Mehta also featured in a September 10 video after an Ashok Stambh plaque was vandalised at Srinagar’s Hazratbal mosque. In this, too, he named Dr Abdul Kalam and Col. Sofia Qureshi as examples of ‘good Muslims’, while later stating that wherever Muslims are more in number, they make it difficult for Hindus to survive.

Below is a September 12 video where Mehta appeared. In this video, the anchor began by asking a Muslim woman in the crowd her opinion on the Nepal protests and whether such protests could also take place in India, resulting in PM Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath losing their positions. The woman responds by saying that anything could happen in an election and that the situation is tense everywhere, not just in Nepal. She adds that multiple cases of Hindus cutting cow meat and blaming it on Muslims are also coming to the fore. At this point, Mehta stps in and says, “You are commenting on gaay mata… You are a woman, I thought you would make some sense but you also spoke along the lines that don’t align with Sofia Qureshi ji. Sofia Qureshi ji is also a Muslim, but you believe Hindus cut cows…”

On Instagram, Mehta has over 51,000 followers, and his page mostly consists of clips from such vox pop interviews. It is evident from his profile that Rahul Mehta is involved with the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS).

And these were just some of the common faces we zeroed in on. Many more such people recurrently appeared in the videos shared by National News Hindi, often promoting conservative, pro-Right narratives and shutting down those with a contrarian view.

Known Right-Wing Faces Platformed

The channel also repeatedly platformed well-known pro-Hindutva and anti-Muslim personalities, such as ‘Delhi ka Deepak’ and Khushbu Pandey. In February, Pandey was arrested in Bihar’s Jamui for allegedly inciting violence through her provocative speeches at a religious procession. She was later released on bail in April under the conditions that she is prohibited from delivering hate speech, must report to the local police station fortnightly, and attend all court hearings.

Similarly, ‘Delhi ka Deepak’ is a Right-wing social media influencer who posts Pro-BJP and anti-Muslim videos on his Facebook and YouTube page.

On September 18, a video by National News Hindi featured Pandey, wherein she was endorsing godman Rambhadracharya’s view that in Hinduism, women are treated as goddesses, while in Islam, they are forced to bear many children, and are divorced if they can’t.

A video from June 6, where the ‘crowd’ was asked to share views on the Bihar elections, showed ‘Delhi ka Deepak’ making obscene gestures and interrupting those speaking.

The video began with a man in a skull cap offering his opinion on camera and saying that the INDIA bloc might win. At the 1:32-minute mark of the video, Rahul Mehta entered the frame and interjected the man. Soon, the conversation moved from the Bihar Elections to Nathuram Godse and communalism. At the 1:39-minute mark, ‘Delhi Ka Deepak’ entered the frame, made obscene gestures, interrupted those who were speaking and grabbed the microphone. Just as Mehta finished with what he was saying, Deepak grabbed the mic and, in reference to the war in Gaza, began saying that many believed Jews were the most dangerous, but to him, Jews were his ‘real brothers’ after his Hindu brethren.

This meant that not only had the channel planted the same people repeatedly to give a certain viewpoint on camera, it was also giving screen time to known social media personalities who vehemently propagated pro-Right ideologies in these videos, making it seem, to unsuspecting viewers, that it was ‘public opinion’.

Interestingly, Alt News also found that the anchor, Amnisha Pal, was hosting similar vox-pop interviews for other YouTube channels as well. Unsurprisingly, these channels’ content was eerily similar to National News Hindi’s.

Series of YouTube channels

While investigating National News Hindi, we came across several other channels on YouTube with similar content and the same interviewees.

News Tank 

We found a channel called News Tank while looking through the profiles of the above-mentioned speakers in these vox pop interviews, and found many common faces. And here as well, we can see Amnisha Pal conducting interviews. Apart from vox pop interviews, several politically influential figures also appeared on this channel.

For instance, in one video from March 9, Rahul Mehta, who on News National Hindi’s video had mocked Muslims for not using the term ‘Bharat Mata’, appeared with similar anti-Muslim remarks.

In this video, the anchor was seeking public opinion on a controversial comment by Sambhal’s circle officer Anuj Chaudhury during Holi this year. The police official had said Holi was an annual festival, unlike the Muslims’ Jumma or Friday prayers, which are weekly, and thus Muslims who fear Holi colours should stay indoors that day. Chaudhury’s comments came ahead of Holi, which this year saw several instances of violence against minorities. We have documented these in detail.

ALSO READ: Holi 2025: Consent goes for a toss again; violence against women, religious minorities takes front seat

On News Tank’s video, Rahul Mehta lauded Chaudhury and supported his views.

In a video from July 25, ‘Ashmit Bhai’ gave his views on the Bihar polls to the anchor, Amnisha Pal.

In one video from October 5 on News Tank’s YouTube channel, we found Riddhima Sharma interacting with Amnisha Pal on the ‘I love Muhammad’ poster controversy. Referring to the police action and arrests made during the protests, she says, “Nepal banane ke khwab dekhne waalo na Gaza bana diya hain aaj unhone” [He (UP CM Adityanath) has created a Gaza-like situation for those who were planning to recreate Nepal]. Showcasing such comments unquestioningly and likening the UP police’s action to Israel’s offensive in Gaza not only trivialises the war, which has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, but is also a way to use the war to propagate Islamophobia.

News Tank was founded by a Rishabh Awasthi, who is also its director and CEO. On Zauba Corp, a Shivam Awasthi was named the company’s co-director.

According to Rishabh Awasthi’s Instagram page, he is a journalist at News Tank. His page has several clips of the channel’s vox pop ‘interviews’. Many of these feature Amnisha Pal as the anchor. On his page, Rishabh had shared images of BJP leaders such as T Raja Singh, Nupur Sharma and Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav. He also features alongside them in a few of them.

We found two Facebook pages related to Shivam Awasthi. On one of his pages that had over 15,000 followers, Shivam described himself as the director of News Tank and chairman of Shyamadevi Social Foundation. Interestingly, his Facebook user id was ‘shivambjpdelhi’. However, the last post made on this was from a year ago.

In the bio of his second Facebook page, he describes himself as ‘PS’ (‘personal secretary’ or ‘private secretary’) to Rajya Sabha MP and Tripura BJP president Rajib Bhattacharjee. He also shared his BJP membership card from 2019, and has been involved with the party since 2017, based on the images he shared. See below:

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Likewise, we found at least four more media channels sharing similar content where we identified the same faces appearing in “vox pop” interviews. These were A2Z News TV, O News Hindi, Veerbhumi Bharat and DNI24. Below are examples that prove this:

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Further, in an effort to understand how National News Hindi operates, we attempted to search for anchor Amnisha Pal’s social media profiles and came across her Instagram page. We found a reel from April 7 on her profile, which was actually posted by a handle called @citizenpostnews, wherein she was tagged as a collaborator.

Citizen Post News

While investigating this handle, we also found a YouTube channel by the same name, Citizen Post News, which had published a series of vox pop interviews by different ‘reporters’.  One among them was Amnisha Pal. The channel had nearly 1 lakh subscribers and its description read: “The citizen post is an online and offline newspaper company of the Ramagya Group, which is distributed all over Delhi NCR…”

However, at present, the channel has been taken down.

The vox pop interviews conducted by Pal for Citizen Post News seemed quite similar to the ones she did for National News Hindi and even had the same people from the crowd sharing their views.

For example, we found ‘Ashmit Bhai’, who featured in several videos by National News Hindi, made an appearance on Citizen Post News.

On August 21, he was seen in a video on the channel talking about the Premanand Maharaj controversy. On the same day, he also featured in National News Hindi’s video, where he was offering his views on the film Bengal Files. In both cases, it was Amnisha Pal who was interviewing him.

While looking for the ownership details of Citizen Post, we came across the Ramagya Group, apparently the media publication’s parent group. According to their website, Citizen Post is an online and offline newspaper under the Ramagya Group, circulated across the Delhi-NCR region. The media outlet also has its own website, but the last report published on it was two months ago.

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The Ramagya Group runs several schools, sports academies and institutes for professional studies. Besides having some other brands and organisations under its wing, it also runs the NGO Ramagya Foundation, under Purusharth Charitable Society. The group is headed by an entrepreneur Dr Sanjay Gupta and his family. Much of the information available online on the leadership and the group’s work was largely press releases or paid articles on news websites.

Staged Views

It became evident from the whole network of channels we found, and the views and virality their videos got, that they not only helped propagate certain Hindutva ideologies and pro-Right stances, but also, by featuring the same people over and over again across these, amplified such radical messaging. The participants’ socials made it hard to overlook links to the BJP.

And, surprisingly, this was not even unusual. Three years ago, in December 2022, Caravan published a story about Delhi’s Palika Bazar becoming the ground for several YouTube channels to gather for ‘vox pop’ interviews. Here many of the same people, including BJP spokespersons, would reappear as stereotypes who spoke on the same subjects each time. The story also covered how these channels were pushing Right-wing propaganda by passing off BJP office bearers or those aligned with the BJP as the “common public”.

When Alt News visited the spot in November, private security guards told us that police had barred the shooting of such videos in and around Palika Bazar gates.

This staging of public ‘views’ by media outlets that peddle it as news not only creates a false perception of how people are reacting to issues, but, in doing so, also shapes viewers’ impressions. And this is exactly how information ecosystems are rigged.

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