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Wednesday, Nov 26, 2008
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Media muddy Malegaon terror probe

Praveen Swami

As facts on Hindutva terror investigation dry up, reports make do with fiction

NEW DELHI: Late on Monday, a national television channel broke the latest in the series of prime-time exclusives that have characterised the unfolding of the investigation into September bombing in Malegaon.

Five Army officers, the television station announced, were being investigated for their connections with the Hindutva terror group Abhinav Bharat. Later, it claimed that a team of the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad was in New Delhi to discuss the issue with top military officials and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan.

But as Tuesday wore on, Ministry of Defence officials insisted they had received no list of officials wanted for investigation by the ATS, while it turned out the NSA was not scheduled to hold meetings with Maharashtra Police officials. Indeed, two ATS officials separately told The Hindu their only representative in New Delhi was Deputy Inspector-General Parambir Singh and he was there to attend a wedding.

Manipulated news?

Journalists making good-faith mistakes isn’t news: attempting to write history as it is being made is always a hazardous business. But over the past fortnight, as the flow of new facts on the politically charged Hindutva terror investigation has begun to dry up, some in the media appear to be trying to make do with fiction.

Last week, the influential Marathi-language newspaper Tarun Bharat reported that ATS chief Hemant Karkare was laundering millions of rupees through a business run by his U.S.-based son. Mr. Karkare’s 17-year-old son in fact lives in Mumbai, and his only known business is preparing for his upcoming high school examinations.

Earlier, when the NSA visited L.K. Advani to discuss the investigation, some newspapers incorrectly reported that former Intelligence Bureau chief A.K. Doval was by the former Deputy Prime Minister’s side. Mr. Doval was thus dragged into a political disputation. “I spent the whole day at a convention organised by one of the newspapers which reported that I was with Mr. Advani,” he recalls wryly.

Another national newspaper front-paged news that terrorism-accused Army officer Prasad Shrikant Purohit had sourced explosives through his contacts in Jammu and Kashmir. As late as November 24, though, the ATS was asking a Mumbai court for more time to question Lieutenant-Colonel Purohit on where he had sourced explosives from — suggesting the police wasn’t as certain as the newspaper.

Fact and fiction

It’s clear that the media’s frenzied pursuit of the story of Hindutva terrorism — a story with a direct bearing on the electoral fortunes of both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party — appears to have led some newsrooms to give the go-by to common-sense checks intended to weed out politically motivated disinformation.

For example, the television station involved in Monday’s reports might have considered if it was really likely that mid-ranking ATS officers — rather than, say, Director-General of Police Anami Roy — would be meeting the NSA. Or, reporters examining Lieutenant-Colonel Purohit’s supposed Jammu and Kashmir links could have looked at why police there had not been contacted for assistance by the ATS.

“Perhaps I am being unfair,” says a senior Maharashtra Police official, who has handled several counter-terrorism investigations, “but it feels like I am being expected to have something new for journalists every day, and if I don’t they’ll just make something up. I just cannot conduct a criminal investigation if I have to provide daily public dispatches on what I’m doing.”

Police officers complain that they often end up carrying the can for the media misreporting. Soon after a shootout which claimed the life of top Indian Mujahideen operative Mohammad Atif, the Varanasi edition of the Hindi-language Dainik Jagran claimed his bank account had a multi-crore balance. In fact, Mr. Atif held just Rs. 1,409.00 in his account. Some New Delhi newspapers, though picked up the Dainik Jagaran account, sparking angry allegations that the police were spreading disinformation.

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