Saturday, February 20, 2010

Moral Policing by the Media?

There is NO justification for Drunken Driving/ Assault on Police. If the charges are true, they should be punished according to the law of the land. However there is no justification either for trial by media, disclosing the identity of the accused.
When Police teams are performing routine checks with alcometer, why have the media presence? that too visual media? The Mediamen may record such images, may blackmail the person in question (even if he is a teetotaller!) later! It is highly condemnable to record images of police activity, and use it in the lay press for titillation! Why have mediamen record video/ photo in the Police station, before they are even charged with the crimes?
Counter Point:
  1. Where is Justice Nayak, who is supposed to guard the Human Rights? It is well known that most muslim countries ban women from getting photo/ videographed...maybe these girls were shocked to see video cameras, so they must have tried to flee the scene...Later, the media was called to the police station too...where is the right to privacy?  When underworld goons are arrested police provide them the luxury of black face masks...but hapless women caught in the middle of the night paraded in front of cameras...
  2. Is it not moral policing by Media? How many drunken brawls by men get reported like this?...the same media houses which cried foul when pubs were raided last year, when the very same pink cheddy gangs which called for Pub Bharo...are now silent! (just because of the alleged attack on the media by these girls?)
  3. Thank God, there was no one in the vicinity wearing any saffron clothes! Otherwise National Council for Women, Amnesty, Transparency..etc would have raised a hue and cry!
Update on 2nd September 2012

Girl committed suicide after being photographed during accosting by police

IP Singh, TNN Aug 31, 2012, 12.34PM IST
Jalandhar: A teenager college student girl committed suicide by jumping before a train on Domoria Bridge on Thursday evening after she was reportedly photographed by a few photo journalists when she was accosted by police at a naka while she accompanied a boy in a car which had hit another car.
It seemed to be a case of over enthusiasm of police and photojournalists back firing as the naka was laid to check eve teasing and in the last few days Traffic police inspector Balwinder Kaur's Nakas and her on the spot punishment to eve-teasers had been making almost daily news and providing good photo opportunity to jurnos. (TOI)

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