Murdering the Messiahs?

Until recently the headlines would read about the killings of common men, thugs, state MLAs, terrorists...

Last week, they bore the news of the gruesome murder of an IPS officer, Narendra Kumar. An officer of the 2009 batch, he was young, honest and very promising! And whats more he was doing his job rightly! In relation to the sand mining case going on in Madhya Pradesh, he was trying to stop a tractor to check its contents. He even lunged on to the tractor to stop it. But the driver, simply drove on and crushed Narendra under the wheels! How inhuman can they get just to earn a little more money! His wife an IAS officer, is on maternity leave, as the couple was expecting their first child! Yet I saw her talking to journalists the other day recounting the lukewarm response of the politicians towards the shocker. One of them even dared to call the incident an accident! What kind of a country are we living in? Where the law does not withhold anyone, where wrong deeds have no repercussions, where the makers of law themselves break them?! The driver definitely has strong political and financial backing, or else how could a mere driver have dared to kill an IPS officer. What hurts more is the stir it has failed to create in the junta of India. Had it not been for the constant reporting by the media and the questions being raised by them, all sand mining activities wouldn't have stopped in Madhya Pradesh for the time being.

Another such incident came in the light two days ago. On the day of Holi, a constable in Calcutta, Ashim Kumar Dam, was beaten up and stabbed, at his own house by youths of his own locality, for trying to stop them from forcefully smearing colours on his niece. He died of cerebral haemorrhage three days later. What is worse is that the police officers at the nearest police station refused to lodge a complaint against the eight youths who had murdered a fellow of their own ranks!
The complaint was accepted the next morning. As it happens always, the men are absconding and our police hasn't been able to find them yet. As for our Chief Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, who calls all rape and assault cases to be shajano (planned), there has been no comment from her in this case, yet. And the other politicians? The CPM says the youths are Trinamul supporters and The Trinamul calls them CPM activists!

Such is the curious case of India...

East or West - who treated Anuj Bidve better?

Yesterday night while flipping through news channels, I stopped at a leading Indian news channel where a debate was going on about the recent murder of Pune-based Anuj Bidve who had apparently been shot by a Briton in Manchester without any provocation. Many label it as a racist attack, many a hate crime n some as just a psychopath killer. Whatever be the reason, a family lost a son without any rhyme or reason, a 23 year old son whom they'd sent for higher studies to the UK, a boy they'd raised so that one day they could proudly say this man is my son. A bullet shot, a moment had taken it all away.
The debate started from sending condolences n heartfelt grievances to the family and continued along the lines of hate crime and racist attacks ending with the British media handling the crime better than the Australian media during the 2008 racist attacks on Indians.
Irritated, I put on the next channel. BBC. Bidve here too. But the stark difference was that the journalist was sitting with the Bidve family and sharing the moments they'd spent with Anuj. No mention of race, religion, nationality or hatred. Simply the sharing of a loss.

What struck me was the way the same murder case was being handled by the media.
While one was sensationalizing, the other sympathizing.

I am in no way comparing and evaluating the two groups of journalists. Rather I am simply laying down what I saw and what I felt as a common man.

I hope to God that the family finds the strength to endure this test of time too. And wherever Anuj is, may his soul rest in peace.