Location: India
Date: January 18, 2021

Award-winning journalist Nidhi Razdan was exposed to a teaching position by an institution posing as Harvard University. Nidhi said on January 15 that she was the victim of an elaborate phishing scam after a job offered for teaching at Harvard University. The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) is appalled by the deceitful targeting of Nidhi. We demand authorities to investigate and identify the culprits immediately.

Nidhi announced on her Twitter account on Friday, January 15, that her job offer was fake and she was scammed after she was convinced to join Harvard University in September 2020.

She said “Alarmed at the scale of this attack, I have filed a complaint with police and provided them with all the relevant documentary evidence,”

Nidhi revealed that the emails she received stating that the attendance date has been withdrawn due to the ongoing pandemic and that the classes are said to begin in January 2021.

"Along with these delays, I began noticing a number of administrative anomalies in the process being described to me," she followed.

The journalist discovered she was defrauded only after she reached Harvard University.

“The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentations to obtain access to my personal data and communications and may have also gained access to my devices and my email / social media accounts,” she said.

According to The Independent, Harvard University has filed a complaint to the police on the matter.

Nidhi is a well-known journalist in India and awarded the International Press Institute (IPI) India Award for her interview on the Kathua rape and murder case in Jammu and Kashmir. The journalist is also the author of the book Left, Right and Center: The Idea of India published in July 2017.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism is deeply concerned about this unfortunate incident that Nidhi faced. We demand authorities to investigate this terrible fraud of the journalist and find the culprits.

The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.

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