Long arm of the law

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Not surprisingly, given the high profile nature of the convictions, most newspapers across the country prominently displayed the news of Coal Minister Shibu Soren and former cricketer Navjyot Singh Sidhu's sentencing in different courts in the country. Indeed, in north India, all major Hindi dailies had the stories as the day's lead, on two consecutive days. Since the Sidhu conviction story coincided with the Supreme Court's verdict that no permission was required to prosecute MPs or chief ministers on corruption charges, that was also a big story, more often than not, it was the day's second lead. Curiously, however, few newspapers in the country chose to comment on the matter editorially.

Punjab Kesri had a picture of Sidhu along with a very grim BJP leader Arun Jaitley walking out of the Punjab and Haryana High Court inset into the day's lead story. The Supreme Court order was in a story titled "No once can escape the law" and a blurb told readers this was about Sidhu and Soren. Rajasthan Patrika's lead story had a box on the salient dates in the Sidhu saga, right from December 27, 1988 when the FIR was filed against him for manslaughter. The Supreme Court story had a box giving the highlights of cases against various MPs and former chief ministers. Soren was the lead the day before. Dainik Bhaskar gave a similar treatment to the stories on both days, except its Sidhu story had quotes from the family of the deceased saying that three years of imprisonment was too little considering the crime Sidhu had committed. The paper had an editorial on the Supreme Court verdict.

Despite being busy covering news on the Karimnagar by-election, the Telugu print media gave wide coverage to Soren's life sentence. Leading dailies Eenadu and Vaartha splashed the news as lead on their front pages, while Andhra Jyothi relegated it to its inside page. All the three newspapers ran four-column stories on their inside pages the next day on the opposition parties lashing out at the PM for inducting "tainted" ministers into his Cabinet.

Tamil daily Dinamalar carried a four-column report on Soren on page 1 with a photo. Page 4 had a photo showing JMM workers holding a demonstration in Ranchi protesting against the court order. The Wednesday edition also carried a two-column report on Shashinath's mother saying that Soren and the others should have been hanged. The daily also had a single-column report on page 1 on the ban on holding meetings within 500 metres of the disputed site at Ayodhya, given the anniversary of the Babri Masjid's demolition. The next day's edition carried a photo showing the Lok Sabha speaker, vice president, prime minister, and leader of opposition paying homage to B R Ambedkar at Parliament House. The Marathi papers, not surprisingly, focused on the violence in the state. Stories of both Sidhu and Soren, however, made it to page one.

The Kannada papers also carried the Soren news as the day's lead. Kannada Prabha said, editorially, the sentence was a landmark in the nation's legal history. Vijaya Karnataka dedicated almost an entire page to Soren's sentence and tracked his political career. The Babri Masjid demolition anniversary also dominated the news coverage in Kannada newspapers. The alleged desecration of Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur and the subsequent riots in Maharashtra saw all the leading Kannada dailies urging restraint in their editorials.