On December 10, 2009 the epaper of the Hindu carried two news item on the visit of an all women fact finding team to Narayanpatna under the sections 'Other States' and 'Andhra Pradesh'. While the news story filed by a staff reporter from Berhampur was titled, All Women Fact finding team faces wrath of mob at Narayanpatna, another one filed by a correspondent at Vizianagaram was headlined Women's probe team assaulted.
The news story filed by a staff reporter from Berhampur sought to put the phrase fact-finding within single inverted commas, reported the account of the 'wrath of the mob' by invoking sources, and even preferred to report what the mob alleged as the intent of the team's visit. The news story referred to the "violent activities" of Chasi Muliya Adivasi Sangh [CMAS] thrice in the story. The story concludes with a summary which unashamedly embraces a version that tries to portray CMAS as an organisation that"used violent means to oppose alleged tribal land grabbing by non-tribals and large scale illicit liquor trading". Look at the placement of adjective 'alleged'. One wonders why the correspondent doesn't place it before the phrase violent means attributed to CMAS, but only before the phrase tribal land grabbing by non-tribals.
His version also reported the views of Sanjeev Panda, the DIG of Police South West range, who said"the members of the fact finding team had not filed any complaint with police", while accepting"they had faced opposition of the angry mob". The correspondent reported what Sanjeev Panda said:"the vehicle of this team had crossed a police check point in Bandhugaon block in heavy speed. It had made the people of the area feel the vehicle may be escaping after causing an accident. So, the localites also pelted stones at the vehicle to stop it".
Did the Hindu carry two news stories filed on the same event to give us the benefit of rather different versions? The second, shorter one based on a phone conversation with an activist and the longer one from Behrampur based on 'sources' and the DIG of Police, with a questionable anti-tribal content. The second report came from its correspondent based in Viziyanagaram who had access to at least one member of the fact finding team Sudha Bhardwaj on the phone, and whose report said that"police at Narayanpatna station were witness to 'indecent' behaviour of the mob".
The assault on the all women fact finding team at the police station has led to Medha Patkar filing a formal complaint at the Governor's office and several Bhubaneshwar-based social activists demanding that State Human Rights Commission should investigate into the assault and the partisan role played by police.
Dear editors at The Hindu please tell us, which of your versions should we give credence to?
Himanshu Upadhyaya