Rhea and her household have been sacrificed on the altar of lynch mob journalism

For weeks they’ve demanded stridently that Rhea be arrested.

Until the day she was arrested final week they gathered like a pack of hyenas outdoors Rhea Chakraborty’s dwelling each morning and reported her each transfer. She is upstairs in her flat. She will probably be down quickly. She has to return out now as a result of the NCB officers are right here. All this on digital camera in shrill, hysterical tones. When she lastly emerged, they shoved their microphones in her face and jostled to get nearer than the remainder so they may relay their ‘breaking information’ and their ‘unique’ photos quickest. They had been meant to be newsmen however extra resembled voyeurs at a lynching. They had been simply following orders. It’s their bosses who have to be held to account. Their bosses are essentially the most well-known TV anchors on this nation, they usually have turned journalism right into a lynch mob.

It saddens me to say that a few of them are ladies. The worst of those had been those that anchor primetime exhibits in Hindi. They made no effort to cease panelists on their exhibits from charging Rhea with homicide, embezzlement and forcing Sushant Singh Rajput to kill himself. For weeks they’ve demanded stridently that Rhea be arrested. Why has she not been arrested but? Will it’s at present? She must be arrested, they instructed their viewers, as a result of the NCB (Narcotics Management Bureau) has interrogated her for 4 days and he or she has admitted to taking medication and procuring them. How did they know?

Then, triumphantly, they declared that this was proof that she lied in these interviews she gave. These celebrated anchors masterminded the lynching, and it was they who put stress on the best investigative businesses within the Authorities of India to arrest a younger lady who’s charged with not more than smoking a joint or two. Marijuana is authorized in lots of international locations and has been discovered to have medicinal makes use of. In India, it has been consumed for hundreds of years. On Holi, it’s utilized by tens of millions of Indians as ‘bhang’. However, this can be a lynching and never simply an arrest, so Rhea and her brother have been denied bail.

Had this media stress been placed on the Narcotics Bureau for the arrest of the mafia that controls the worldwide drug commerce it will have been taxpayers’ cash effectively used. However, this mafia is ruthless and brutal, so neither journalists nor officers dare get in its method, go away alone examine drug trafficking. When anybody has obtained in the best way they’ve ended up lifeless together with their households. So, cocaine will proceed to be imported from Latin America and heroin and opium-related medication will proceed to be imported throughout our borders with Pakistan. The one factor that has been achieved by this media lynching of Rhea is that the household of a retired Military officer has been destroyed.

As somebody who has been in journalism since these ‘darkish days of the Emergency’, it saddens me to confess that I’ve by no means seen the Indian media behave so shamefully earlier than. I obtained my first job as a reporter in The Statesman newspaper a month earlier than Indira Gandhi put the nation below an inside Emergency and enforced whole press censorship. Newspapers that attempted to defy censorship had been subjected to ‘pre-censorship’. This meant that the newspaper must be despatched to the Press Info Bureau after it was prepared and infrequently the censors would intentionally delay returning it in order that it couldn’t come out on time the following day. It was a nasty time. However, journalists continued to defy censorship all through the Emergency even on the danger of being jailed. There have been those that kowtowed they usually had been shunned. It was a time when the one journalists who had been revered and admired had been those that had been able to go to jail quite than undergo Mrs Gandhi’s authoritarian regime. How the occasions have modified.

Right now, the TV journalists who’re essentially the most celebrated are those that don’t dare say something that may offend the Authorities of India. However, they make an amazing present of ‘talking reality to energy’ in states that aren’t ruled by the BJP. Like Maharashtra. For months there have been makes an attempt to convey down this authorities. The previous chief minister has by no means reconciled to dropping his job. He appears to imagine he’s entitled to be chief minister as a result of the Shiv Sena ditched him after the votes had been counted. There’s additionally an election in Bihar developing and BJP posters have photos of Sushant Singh Rajput on them. The identical well-known TV journalists who’ve been liable for the despicable media lynching we’ve got witnessed don’t dare admit that they’ve grow to be pawns in a political sport.

Rhea and her household have been sacrificed on the altar of lynch mob journalism. However, these of you who spend your evenings watching the very channels which have grow to be automobiles of lynching and yellow journalism must also really feel ashamed. You might be as a lot accountable for the rot that’s consuming into the construction of Indian journalism as are those that used primetime exhibits to conduct the lynching. The rot goes so deep that it is going to be a protracted, very long time earlier than it may be stemmed. I’ve no hesitation in admitting that in additional than 40 years as a proud member of the Indian media I’ve by no means felt extra ashamed of being a journalist.

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