Amit Shah, the Minister of State for Home In Gujarat Government has been in Judicial Custody after CBI issued summons and filed a charge sheet against him last week in the Sohrabbudin fake encounter case. The entire episode was hyped up and portrayed by most of our media. The media ran its own trial and tried the accused and even hanged him even before he was interrogated by the CBI. On Sunday 25th July 2010, Amit Shah himself presented to the CBI and was taken to a magistrate. CBI did not even ask for the custody of Amit Shah, who by now had resigned as the minister from the Gujarat Cabinet. Amit Shah was taken in judicial custody.
Since today morning reputed news channel CNN-IBN announced that it would be ‘exclusively’ showing the video tapes which provides evidence against Amit Shah, the ex-home minister of state for Gujarat, which would throw light on the Sohrabbudin fake encounter case. No one tried to find out what these tapes were and how did a news channel got access to it when the case was still on and CBI was yet to interrogate Amit Shah.
The event was hyped and was supposed to be ‘make or break’ in the case against the ex-minister as pointed out and advertised by the channel. It even leaked a part of the transcript on its website ibnlive.com suggesting something but revealing nothing. People were hooked and glued to the Television at 8 pm and then the videos were shown.
The videos were some sort of ‘sting’ operation captured by the 2 builders who themselves have plenty of cases pending against them. The not so clear videos show the builders talking against themselves and the policemen, who are also behind bars in the same case, something about money changing hands, them complaining to Amit Shah,who didnt listen to them and so on. The video was shabby to say the least. It was on par with what any 8 year old would have shot in a birthday party. Considering that it was supposedly a ‘sting’ operation we can give benefit of doubt to the quality of video and audio recorded, however it was a clear case of 4 people discussing sitting and speaking about a 5th person who is not even present in the video. None of the audio ever revealed anything related to the case. We do not even know when and where the video was shot, was it shot last week? or 2 years back? No proof of that.
Coming to the crucial point, How can these “sting” tapes be considered “proof” against Amit Shah? 4 people are talking about a 5th in his absence – this can easily be ‘created’. The persons discussing themselves are from dubious background. Is this the evidence CBI has? If so is the case, then Amit Shah has nothing to worry.
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Larger question is how can media allow itself to be used this way & expect its credibility to go unquestioned? Media bias is so obvious and any sensible person will take any news with pinch of salt. But today, namak zyada ho gaya.Bahut zyada.
Dear Media, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah may be whatever they are, but please don’t peddle conversation between 4 people as proof of something. It’s just another home video from Youtube.
Yeh Mera India 