Monday, January 31, 2011

Whose side of story are they reporting?

Today's entry to Hall of shame is Media (HT & NDTV) report of police shooting at Maisuma locality of Srinagar resulting in serious injury of one Yasir Malik, cousin of Separatist Leader Yasin Malik.
I am personally amazed how a INDIAN national media can be so irresponsible in their reporting!



Hindustan Times starts their report rather dramatically -
An argument with a police officer reportedly during a game of carom on a Srinagar street proved costly for Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik's teenaged nephew and three friends on Monday.
To back up their claim, they quote Separatist leader Yasin Malik (not police not J&K Govt)
“The boys were playing carom and had an argument with a sub-inspector but eyewitnesses say some other police personnel came and fired from behind,
Not sure what was HT expecting from Yasin malik? support police? And it seems that police has accepted the mistake because
A constable held responsible for firing at the boys has been suspended.
So according to HT, some youth were playing carroms and they get into an Argument with Police who in turn shoot them(from behind acc to Malik). Police even suspended the cop which makes it look that the mistake was  with police.
As a responsible national paper, One would have expected HT to publish police side of story to prevent bias but then who gives a hoot on what police thinks!
NDTV reporting on this incident is also pathetic.
According to NDTV -
condition of a young man who was injured in police firing on Monday turned critical. The man, Yasir Rafiq, is a cousin of separatist leader Yasin Malik.
NDTV also manages to make the incident look police brutality
However, at the end of story they do mention an interesting piece of information which Hindustan Times also omitted
There was violence in Srinagar on Monday after a police constable fired at people trying to violate curfew. Five people were injured in that firing.
Now things are becoming a bit more clearer. So the youth were not that Innocent. They were violating curfew and resulting police action caused injuries. Also, Minor detail - There is standing shoot at sight order for curfew violators (of course NDTV forgets this part). Imagine the difference it would have made if this critical piece of information was mentioned towards starting of news.
Neither NDTV not HT make any mention of any injury to police personnel nor did they bother to report police version of story
The most concise report of this incident comes from none other than Times of India. TOI reports police version of the story and according to Police -  
"At about 1230 hours, some miscreants violated the order of restriction on movement in Maisuma Chowk. The protesters were asked by police to disperse. However, they resorted to stone-pelting on police and CRPF personnel, leaving two constables injured, following which the security personnel used force
Resulting firing caused injury to five civilians (including Yasir Malik). It also injured two police constables were identified as Mukhtar Ahmad and Abdul Waheed.
In Summary: A group of youth breaks curfew(which HT fail to report) resulting clash causes 7 injuries, 5 civiliar & 2 cops (both NDTV & HT failed to report)

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