Double Standards of Indian press.

Indian leading newspaper Times of India which is in forefront for virtually running ‘save Sarabjit Singh’ campaign (an Indian spy), is religiously following every news regarding to him and every word of his family is given much more attention to make his release a ‘national issue’, as if whole of India is dying to see it’s ‘proud son’ setting his foot on Indian soil. Recently Home Minister Shivraj Patil while speaking to media persons in his native place Latur in Maharashtra, said “people are saying don’t hang an Indian in Pakistan, Sarbjit, and then are demanding hanging of a Pakistani, Afzal Guroo (who is a Kashmiri, may be mistakenly said as Pakistani by Patil) this is not fair. As it seems from this statement some sort of better sense has prevailed upon a section of Indian people although in minority.
As is usual with Indian press, which is totally biased and throws journalistic norms to winds in case of reporting about Kashmir this news paper mentioned above reported that “by equating the case of Guru, held guilty and sentenced to death by supreme court for the 13/12 attack in 2001, with that of Sarbjit, in whose case the Manmohan Singh government has not endorsed the conviction for terror charges, patil seems to have stepped onto a mine field. Not only does his comparison imply that Sarbjit is “guilty” of a terrorist act, it will also be read as a defence of Guru”. Afzal Guru, who is pleading to be innocent and denied fair trial, is accused to be conspirator and as such can’t be handed death sentence according to Indian constitution, still no one from Indian print or electronic media has uttered a single word in favour of him. Indian media today is in whirlpool of duplicity and double standards and if someone shows consciousness to stand by truth he is shown the exit door as was done to senior journalist M.J.Akbar, founder editor of Asian Age.
The criticism of patil’s statement by BJP and other radical extremist parties in India is understandable. By spreading hatred against Muslims and Pakistan these onetime fringe elements able to win only few seats was able to form their government at centre with overwhelming majority, that is total opposite in Pakistan where it is generally believed that people support extremist radical groups and hawks rule the roost there, no religious or ‘extremist’ party has been able to form government since it’s birth. Very recently L.K.Advani praised Ali Muhammad Jinnah in Pakistan and back home he had to face uproar and forced to eat humble pie by stepping down as BJP President. Intolerance is growing fast in India which is supposedly ‘world’s largest democracy’ one can only hope that better sense prevails upon rest of majority in India.

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