[Reader-list] Media misrepresented key facts on Shopian rape-murder

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

*Media misrepresented key facts on Shopian rape-murder *

Praveen Swami * Journalists share responsibility for fanning south Kashmir
violence, judge says *
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For the most part, Justice Jan found, the media misrepresented forensic
evidence

Blood on a victim’s forehead was “shamefully distorted and projected as a
mark of sindoor”
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NEW DELHI: Ever since May, when the bodies of two women washed up near
Shopian, journalists have chronicled the multiple failures of administration
and policing that allowed the tragic deaths to spark off some of the worst
street violence ever seen in Jammu and Kashmir.

Following the release of the findings of the Justice Muzaffar Jan Commission
of Enquiry on Friday, the Jammu and Kashmir government has announced that it
intends to prosecute four police officials for some of those failures.

But both journalists and the Jammu and Kashmir government have maintained a
stoic silence on one institution blamed by Justice Jan for spreading
falsehood and inciting violence: the media itself.
 Stories fabricated?

Justice Jan’s report highlights disturbing evidence that some journalists
may have fabricated elements of their stories.

Early in June, several Srinagar-based journalists reported that one victim’s
husband had received a call from her at 7 p.m. on May 29. During the call,
the accounts said, the victim reported that she was being chased by CRPF
personnel.

In their testimony to the Jan Commission, though, the victim’s husband and
her brother made it clear that she had never owned a mobile phone, a fact
first reported in this newspaper. Jammu and Kashmir police investigators
attached to the Commission studied 32,686 cellphone calls made in Shopian on
May 29, and were able to establish that none was made to or from any phone
that may have been in the victim’s possession.

Efforts were also made by sections of the media to suggest that the local
police may have sought to hush up the case on the orders of their superior.
Journalists in particular turned on Constable Mohammad Yaseen, who was
reported to have made several phone calls to superiors even as a search for
the victims’ bodies was underway — evidence, it was argued, of the unusual
interest of his bosses in the case.

In fact, the Commission found, Mr. Yaseen had made only four calls during
the whole day and none between 10 p.m. on June 29, when the search for the
victims began, until 6 a.m. on June 30, when the bodies were found.

Local resident Jamal-ud-Din Wani, claimed by the media to be an eyewitness
to the killings, was alleged to have been abducted after the bodies were
found. The Jan Commission found him living in a tent at the hamlet of
Dehgam, close to Shopian, where he works as a watchman at a local seminary.

For the most part, Justice Jan found, the media misrepresented forensic
evidence. Media accounts insisted that both women appeared to have been
badly beaten and gang raped. However, the Jan Commission states,
pathologists found no evidence to support the proposition of gang rape.
Moreover, only one victim’s body was found to bear visible external
injuries. Claims that one victim was pregnant at the time of her death,
Justice Jan states, were also wrong.

Perhaps in order to buttress claims that the two women had been raped before
they were killed, some journalists asserted that their clothes were torn.
However, witnesses interviewed by the Jan Commission said that the women’s
Feran and shalwar were intact.

Most disturbing, though, is Justice Jan’s finding that the media incited
hatred by broadcasting communal propaganda.

Based on the accounts of individuals claiming to be eyewitnesses, newspapers
said that one victim’s forehead had been smeared with sindoor — an
allegation that suggested that the rapists were Hindus, and the rape itself
macabre religion-driven hate crime. However, the Commission noted, the red
marks on her forehead were in fact blood from a head wound. “The flow of
blood,” the report states, “was shamefully distorted and projected as a mark
of sindoor.”

Noting that this kind of reporting has fuelled violence in Jammu and
Kashmir, Justice Jan has suggested that “firm guidelines are made to ensure
that, before publication of any news, the authenticity of the news be
verified.”