 "I&B blames news channels for thousands turning up for Yakub burial")
The information & broadcasting (I&B) ministry has defended having issued showcause notices to four news channels for their reportage on the execution of 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon by pointing out that the tenor of the channels’ reports on the hanging “constituted a serious threat to national security” and “sown the seeds of distrust between communities”.
The ministry, in its notices issued late last week, had maintained that the reports on these channels had cast aspersions on the integrity of the President of India and the Supreme Court and that the reports could have incited violence and led to law and order problems.
"The result of this reportage has been that a large number of well meaning members of the community to which Yakub Memon belonged have started feeling that he was a victim. It is for these reasons that Mumbai was tense on the date of his burial and thousands of people turned up for his burial," a Ministry note, issued on Monday, stated.
“Does the programme code permit this as a part of free speech?” the note asks in response to the criticism by the broadcasting fraternity that the issuance of showcause notices was an attack on free speech. The notices were issued to Aaj Tak, ABP News, NDTV 24x7 and NDTV India.
Meanwhile, the News Broadcasters Association or NBA, an industry body with 56 news channels as its members, urged the Ministry on Monday "to withdraw the show cause notices". It said the government, which has "gone on record to state that it believes the media should be independent without any government interference and it should regulate itself", should refer the notices to the News Broadcasting Standards Authority, an independent regulatory body, which would consider them under its regulations.
The Ministry also disputed former Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari that the UPA governments didn't issue any such notices. The Ministry said that the UPA 2 government issued 23 such notices to news channels and non-news programme channels in 2012-13 and 33 in 2013-14 for having violated the programme code.
Ministry sources said constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression comes with reasonable restrictions as does the programme code of the Cable Television Network Act. It said the Code is clear that no programme should be broadcasted that is likely to incite violence, contains anything which disturbs law and order, amounts to contempt of court, casts aspersions on the integrity of the judiciary or contains anything against the integrity of the nation.
The Ministry has faulted Aaj Tak and ABP News for "providing a forum to gangster Chhota Shakeel by telecasting his interviews where he said every action will have a reaction and how so many people will avenge the hanging of Yakub Memon. The Ministry has also said that NDTV English carried an interview of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Majid Memon where he purportedly said that any knowledgeable person in the UK or US will "start laughing at us" if this order was shown to them. Similarly, NDTV India alleged that the Suprme Court decision not to concede to Yakub Memon's prayer as unfortunate.
"The common thread running through the entire reporting by the four channels was to convey to the viewers that unfairness has been done to Yakub Memon. The tenor of discussion has been that it is only against people belonging to one community who are executed while others manage to get relief from the Supreme Court or the government," a Ministry note said.
It stated that news channels gave examples of Devinder Pal Singh Bullhar, an accused in 1993 Delhi bomb blast case as also of Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was convicted for the assassination of former Punjab CM Beant Singh, that their death sentence was commuted. "The truth is both are on death row," it said.
The Ministry has also clarified that since 1991, of the 26 persons executed in India, only four belonged to the Muslim community. It blamed the Congress-led UPA for the delay in the hanging of convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, which led to the Supreme Court to convert their death sentence into life imprisonment.