By Mohd. Ismail Khan & M. Reyaz, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: As the twin blasts ripped off Hyderabad by targeting its main commercial center Dilsukhnagar, police was tight lipped not letting their guns lose on particular terror groups, after earlier goof ups in Mecca Masjid blasts.
But as ‘national’ media still tried to maintain some amount of restraint, the job of spreading sensation over terror has now been taken up by regional Telugu media. Just hour after the blasts regional media started quoting “unnamed sources from Intelligence bureau” and started giving irresponsible and insensitive statements.
First Telugu news channels started reporting how adjoining Muslim localities to Dilsuknagar area like Malakpet and Mousarambagh is taken under police siege giving an impression that culprit are from those areas.
Telugu media then started quoting their ‘intelligence sources’ claiming that blasts has been carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba to avenge the hanging of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru, even as Hyderabad police was yet to conform whether it was a terror strike or a gas explosion in local tiffin center as suggested in earlier reports.
RSS mouth piece, Sri Ram channel in the city taken the lead, by giving wild suggestions about ‘terrorists from old city’ attacking to revenge Afzal Guru’s hanging, which later became the hallmark of all other Telugu media news channels reporting.
Tv9 and Tv5, reputed Telugu news channels in Andhra Pradesh, started quoting ‘unnamed IB sources’ claiming ‘Indian Mujahideen with logistic support from ‘old Hyderabad terror sleeper cells’ orchestrated this bomb blasts.
T News, mouth piece of Telangana separatist political party TRS, eventually fell into the line of its competitors and directly put before its viewers that Indian Mujahideen is behind this blasts without giving any reference or evidence to their claim.
Ntv, another reputed Telugu news channel, in Hyderabad made sure that they are not left behind in wild reporting and creating sensation. Channel stated wildly that Hyderabad blasts were masterminded in Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, HuJI, ISI to avenge Afzal Guru’s hanging. It also gave reference of some meetings held in Pakistan to condemn Afzal’s hanging, where according to the news channels, terrorists openly threatened to carry out terror strikes in Hyderabad. Again, quoting unnamed IB source, the channel claimed some Abdullah Bhagdadi visited Hyderabad to carry out this terror strike.
National media:
National news channels were not far left behind from local Telugu news channels. National news channels carried into this wave and gave wild suggestions out of blue suggesting terrors strike to be handiwork of Indian Mujahideen to avenge the death of Guru and Kasab.
Home Minister Shushil Kumar Shinde had told media that intelligence agencies had received an attack alert two days ago, but that was not specific, without naming any group. He said, “Cannot speculate on the perpetrators of the blast as of now.” Shockingly, a journalist during Sushil kumar shinde’s press brief on blasts asked Union Home minister whether the blasts was to ‘avenge the arrest of Akbaruddin Owaisi’.
However, CNN IBN reported, “Sources said the central security agencies had sent an advisory on Tuesday asking all states to tighten security in sensitive places as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen may launch attacks.”
IBN further added, “A crucial police interrogation report accessed by CNN-IBN (or leaked to them?) has revealed that specific information was provided during the questioning of the Indian Mujahideen operative.”
On its website,IBNLive, it published the ‘prized’ document – full text of the Delhi Police interrogation report that had all the names and sequence of events according to the police.
NDTV, by far, was most restraint that did mention about MHA’s media briefing and that intelligence information, general in nature, was shared. But it did not go to conclude or link the incident to any earlier event.
Interestingly all this news channels were the same who gave teachings to the Home Minister earlier for his ‘saffron terror’ remarks strongly suggesting that ‘pre- submission’ would hamper continuing investigations.
Times of India left no scope of doubt on the perpetrators of this heinous crime when it ‘crhonlogically explained how and why Dilsukhnagar has been Indian Mujahideen radar since 1999 : “Dilsukhnagar, a Hindu-dominated locality with a history of communal tension, has been on the terrorists’ radar for long; at least since 1999 when a bomb was planted near a Hanuman temple. The device was detected in time by police.”
It further added, “The choice of Dilsukhnagar is no accident and fits in the pattern of IM attacks. The terror module has so chosen the day and timing of its attacks as to ensure that the majority community bore the brunt: something which dates to the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai and which is meant to exacerbate communal tension.”
Ravichandran Chakkiliyan, an activist and research scholar from English and Foreign Language University, said that TV news channels reporting resemble brainwashing of ‘people’ to prepare them for next discourse. He said that media job will be done in the morning when you find confession of organization, except their address and the real truth.
FirstPost, which does not shy away from making bold statements, ended an article with the stories circulating in rumor mills: “Conspiracy theories are pointing to how the terrorists would have wanted to take advantage of the communal tension created as a result of the hate speeches delivered by MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia in the last two months and create more fissures.” And added, “The challenge for Hyderabad now is to stand up united to defeat those designs of the terrorists.”