Recent news in the media showed a man being beaten terribly in Bihar. Much to the amazement of the rest of the country, policemen also took an active part and dragged him behind their motorcycle. His crime: he tried to snatch a chain from a woman’s neck.
When I heard the news, my initial reaction was, ‘Good! Thieves should be treated this way’. But when I saw the horrific sight on the news channel it made me think twice. Maybe this boy was driven by extreme circumstances to commit such a crime. Every religion- be it Hindu, Muslim, Buddhism, Christianity etc. teaches you to be compassionate. We just live one life. How can one possibly think that he/she has the right to take another human being’s life? The problem I see in India is the prevalence of anti-social elements. Whenever there is any issue these so called anti-social elements just join the campaign, regardless of whether or not they have adequate information about the issue. If these people really have so much free time then why not do it for the benefit of the country instead of aimless butchering. This boy had just committed a small crime. There are people in big posts who commit even bigger crimes. Why not set them straight? Why not punish them instead?
Police barbarity in Bhagalpur once again made headlines on Tuesday reminding many about the infamous 'blinding case' in which policemen had poured acid into the eyes of criminals.
ReplyDeleteThe State Government wasted no time in taking action against the 'guilty' policemen while the Opposition left no stone unturned in playing politics over it. Communal tension could be averted somehow in the sensitive area. The National Human Rights Commission lost no time in taking cognisance and serving notices to the Bihar Government officials. Hype heaped over national psyche; sensation swooned over but none bothered to find out how a local studio cameraman of Nathnagar made it all happen for the sensation-starved news channels and hyper-active dailies doing journalism of courage.
Bihar still is the most lawless State of the country and the Bihar Police still cannot escape from its tag of barbarity attached to it but whatever had happened in Bhagalpur on Tuesday was all but not journalism. It was all sheer sensationalism over an amateur footage picked up (or rather bought up, as some said) by the national news channels.
But did anyone try to find out if the policemen shown in footage really tried to drag the alleged chain snatcher Saleem Illiyas with their motorcycle after tying him up to it? Are they shown in the video clip tying the culprit to the motorbike? Yes, it is clear in the clip that one of them ASI LB Singh was beating the thief in the course of taking him out from the frenzied mob.
But, if one look beyond the immediate it is also conspicuous in the footage that a bare-chested man was pushing the red colour bike. The bike was not in motion and eyewitnesses said it was not even started.
The policeman on the bike, Constable Ramchandra Singh, looked helpless before the hostile crowd. Both the policemen do not have any record of such brutality.
But oblivious of the drama being played out around him, the young cameraman was shooting a puja at the local Mannath Kamana temple. Seeing the commotion, he turned the focus of his camera at the drama. He fixed his camera from one angle and shot the visuals from that direction. It showed that the policemen were dragging the thief from their motorbike.
Not even a single news channel took pains to get the sound byte from that amateur cameraman or to look at what he had shot from other angles.
When the cameraman, who is hardly sixteen, shot the 'drama' out of his curiosity, a stringer of a local news channel took the visuals from him and sent it to one of the "first to telecast" national news channels.
The boy who had shot the sequence even did not know who was getting what and how and from where.
This is high time that we should take these media wala to task. to bradcast stories without verifying it.
I request yo also as a blogger not to soread such mesasages and creat negative publicity for a State which is trying hard to come out of it Bad image and hostile an biased media.