The News Minute | January 10, 2015 | 07:07 pm IST
As Sunanda's murder gets solved in TV studios- from Tharoor we have moved to Mafia.
Arnab Goswami announced at the end of the close-to-an-hour long debate on Friday night: ‘Sunanda Pushkar was 100 percent murdered in a mafia type operation done by professionals.’ He was quick to add, “We are not saying who the murderer is”.
Yes..it looked like the channel was indeed close to solving the murder after many days of intense debate. And after casting aspersions at many people, it was finally the Mafia that got the blame.
Pushkar, former Union minister Shashi Tharoor's wife, was found dead in a room in a upscale hotel in South Delhi on January 17, 2014. Almost a year later, the case took a fresh turn when Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi on Tuesday told the media that Sunanda Puhskar's death was unnatural and had resulted due to poisoning.
Ever since, the media have got into a race of sorts, in what seems to be an attempt to solve the ‘Sunanda Pushkar murder mystery’ first. All prime slots have been devoted to the discussion of this case where the information already present in the public domain is oft repeated along with panelists ‘revealing’ what their ‘sources’ told them. Then there is a counting of the most repeated ‘sourced’ info on the group and based on that a general conclusion is drawn.
Its not just one channel, but investigations were happening at other shows too. On Headlines Today, Rajdeep Sardesai was asking if the media was acting like jury. Other than the debate's name that was 'different', this on too had panelists,speculating about who killed Sunanda.
Since almost all channels have the pictures of Sunanda's bruises, the nation has been given an ample opportunity to take a glimpse with red/black/white circles around the bruises in the last few days.
One Malayalam channel even claimed the tenth bruise was the big evidence. When we contacted them thinking this could be a big exclusive which the rest of the nation didn't get, we were told that was just an attempt to spice up the story.
If all the mystery wasn't enough, there is a Sunil Saab angle too. The man who was supposedly Sunanda's friend has been questioned and not questioned by the Delhi Police, as per breaking news on various channels.
The Friday evening debate on The News Hour was not really different in that matter. It was interesting to note a ‘mafia’ angle was brought into the discussion. Only, it was one debate which had way too many ‘obvious-es’ and ‘if-s’ together, strangely. And the mafia angle was not really delved into.
Shobhaa De, author and columnist, was one of the panelists on the show moderated by Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami. She began by narrating a conversation, she claims, she had with Sunanda days before her death. Sunanda, at that point, was not confident about her health’ she believed, or could have been made to believe that she was unwell.
Sunanda, a ‘woman in love’, also felt that she had been made a ‘scapegoat’. She had some crucial information about the ‘murky IPL scam’ and also ‘talked about a Dubai connection’. She initially didn't make it public because she didn't want to put her husband's political career in jeopardy. But just days prior to her death, she was planning to reveal all the information. De was also perhaps the only panelist who was allowed to speak till she finished her account.
The next part of the debate followed the same format, a lot of people loudly talking about too many things at one point.
The FIR was read, so was the autopsy report- Pushkar had been ‘bitten, beaten and injected’ - loud and clear. All the while Goswami stressing on the point that Tharoor was likely to be the only person who was continuously present with Sunanda during the last four days of her life. (Its for us to guess the rest).
No one openly said anything about the possible ‘assasin’, but the debate had an air of being led to one particular direction. (Wow).
Goswami was also annoyed by a statement Tharoor made in his recent press conference, which he made a ‘mockery’ of- he asked the media to show some decency and respect his privacy.
No one has been named in the Delhi Police's First Information Report and it only mentions names of the witnesses. Every suspect deserves the benefit of doubt, and in this case the police have not even named any. Then what gives us the right to pin down a select few?
When Sanjay Hegde, Senior Advocate, SC, said ‘let’s not politicize the case’, Goswami broke into another round of how his channel did not indulge in politicizing and said that ‘if Tharoor did want to ask questions of decency, he should ask it to a certain new channel that was taking takes voyeuristic pleasure in showing pictures of his murdered wife’s body’.
Goswami also said that there are just ‘10 or 15 people in the country who do not believe she was murdered’. (Hopefully that list will be published soon).
As speculations were speculated, Sumanth C Raman, Sports Commentator, jumped into the debate, with perhaps an intention of making light of the situation. He said, “One good idea would be to send CDs of The News Hour debate that has been going on to the Delhi Police”. (And we have no clue why he is on every debate these days).
When advocate C Rajashekaran asked whether there was any evidence that Pushkar told De what the latter was claiming she said, a seemingly defiant Goswami replied “She is sitting right next to me. Are you saying Shobha De is lying?”
There does not seem to be any reason to believe that De could be lying but then again if sitting next to someone could only prove a point in a murder case.
That Pushkar was or was not murdered or who killed her is for the judiciary to decide. But that may take too long. So it seems news shows have taken over.
As the debate goes on,its perhaps the right time to remind everyone about what happened to the Arushi Talwar murder case.