Soapbox Part II

Been watching the news all evening today as well. I don't want to be too controversial and have people baying for my blood, but some things occur to me as I watch these images.

1) Though I have followed all of this night and day, I have a sneaking feeling the media have been inappropriate in how relentlessly they've covered this story disregarding the safety of the people inside and the pleas of the police not to let slip information that might help the militants. I don't know if anyone else noticed this yesterday, but Barkha Dutt (someone I hugely respected) revealed in her piece to camera that the security forces were using a secret passage to smuggle hostages out of the Taj, and then proceeded to tell us exactly on which floor it was and connecting which two buildings. Would it be so hard for some informer to call one of the terrorists inside the Taj to say, hey I was watching the news... you better check out the 14th floor? Does she have blood on her hands in her thirst to get the exclusive before the 15 other channels covering the carnage 24/7? Even if what I just said wasn't an issue, I may have misunderstood--or she may have been given the info after the threat to those people had gone, but it still seemed unnecessary just to slake our curiosity.

Another is the insensitive interviewing of family members outside. When a woman said she had no doubt her husband would come out alive of the hotel, a visibly unbelieving Dutt gushed, "That's what you SHOULD think to keep your spirits up. What a braave woman you are!" (Facing back to camera) "This is a woman who hasn't seen her husband in 24 hours and hasn't heard from him in 12."

Atleast these journalists were doing their job, what sickens me to the GUT are the people who have gone to gawk and position themselves right behind the journalists, looking straight into the camera with a "Look Ma, I'm on TV!" expression. There were such a crowd of people that the police had to ask the camera people to switch off the lights, because after all crowd management should've been the LAST thing on their minds right now.

2) My second point is, these terrorists who're captured alive should be shown a brand of their own justice; but in our self righteousness, let's not forget that justice is still pending for the 1000s of people who were systematically murdered in Gujarat. Not only do we know who did it, we allow him to remain Chief Minister of that state, and that's a crying shame. So when we bay for these terrorists' blood (as we rightfully should), let's add Narendra Modi's name as well to the list, and let's ask to avenge our murdered countrymen in Orissa as well.