By Ranjona Banerji
How are journalists supposed to respond to “encounters†by the police or security forces? That is, when people suspected of a crime are killed by the police or security forces before they have been tried in a court of law? The Armed Forces fight people from outside the country who attack them. That is not under discussion now.
For now, let’s just look at the police and security forces. There was a time when most journalists knew difference between those suspected of crimes and those who had been convicted. Some journalists also understood that within the vagaries of law, the innocent could be convicted. But most of all journalists understood that their job was to question, question, question.
And even if there were journalists who preferred to believe the official line, journalists who felt that the political proclivities of the day matched their assumption, there were enough newsroom checks and balances which provided a back-up course correction. It is not that mistakes were not made; it is more that people were aware that mistakes were being made.
Of course, I refer to times when journalists were not stars who appeared in your bedrooms and your living rooms blaring out their viewpoints and prejudices. Or even, unfortunately, their ill-informed understanding of democracy and their role in it. You read a column in the seclusion of your mind and you agree or disagree or are neutral about it. The neural pathways to your brain may be listless or excited with the message but they are not screaming as hysterically as they are with our TV anchors.
So to the issue at hand: eight under-trials escaped from a jail in Bhopal on Monday. They belonged to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India or SIMI. The eight under-trials apparently killed a head constable, scaled a 32 foot wall and escaped from Bhopal Central Jail. They were all killed some 19 hours later by the Anti-Terrorist Squad.
However, differing accounts from ministers and the police has led to confusion. Semi-official reports said they were armed, not armed, armed with cutlery and plates which had been sharpened into weapons. A couple of videos surfaced which raised even further questions about the weaponry used and available to these under-trials. What is accepted is that 10 hours after they escaped, they were all shot dead.
It should be obvious, but it bears repeating: The trouble with “encounter†policing is that it undermines the judicial system, leaving it redundant. If the police are to decide who is innocent and who is guilty, why should one bother with courts at all? Certainly, one can make a case for police officials being shot at or targeted by dreaded criminals and terrorists and then being forced to shoot back in self-defence. But here again, an investigation is required. Nothing can be taken at face value.
The job of the journalist is to ask these and other questions. The job of the journalist is not to accept the government or official version, even if the journalist wants to appear “patrioticâ€. The job of the journalist is to be an annoying mosquito in the ear of the official version. It may be unpleasant, but that is how it is.
It is not the job of the journalist to behave like the sub-editor, or maybe even editor-in-chief at NewsX for all I know, who came up with this line: “Within 6 hours of ‘jailbreak’ MP cops kill 8 SIMI ‘Ravanas’.â€
It may better behove a journalist to think like this:
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/bhopal-simi-activist-dead-video-jailbreak-undertrials-3731611/
Always, it is good to keep in mind BJP stalwart LK Advani’s description of journalists during the Emergency: When asked to bend, they crawled. Why should we ever do it again?