People Angry Over A Baseless News Which Labelled Pulwama As A “Criminals Heaven”
Umran Hussain
A News Portal based in South Kashmir drew flack for a news item it carried on Friday evening, calling Pulwama, A criminal’s heaven.
The video captioned as “Pulwama- A criminals heaven” presented some distorted and unconfirmed facts which took place in past two weeks in Pulwama.
A doctors’ name among the drug peddlers, a man who was involved in selling orphans from orphanages, longer stay of doctors in district hospital Pulwama and involvement of a village level worker in some scam are the crimes described by the so called journalist in the video which according to her has made Pulwama, a criminal’s heaven.
Why the News is not based on facts?
The doctor whose name figured among the arrested drug peddlers does belong to the district Pulwama but his involvement is yet to be ascertained by the police and even if he is truly involved in the crime, does not mean that every doctor in the district can be a drug peddler and never does it mean that the district provides a safe heaven for the criminals.
So far as the longer stay of doctors in the district hospital is concerned, this truly has been a long pending demand of the people of Pulwama but all those doctor’s barring a few have been transfered now. And one wonders, how does transfers and postings of employees make a district a criminal one?
Village level workers involvement too is not a departmental complaint filed anywhere in the district but a few Facebook journalists who loot money from the innocents had tried to blackmail the said village level worker and no such case is pending anywhere in the department of rural development pertaining to district Pulwama.
How people of Pulwama reacted?
“The caption of the video is disgusting and I feel we should file an FIR against the news portal for brining a bad name to our district. How does A village level workers involvement in corruption make our district a heaven of criminals.” Wrote Feroz Ali
“This is what we call half-Baked journalism, a news not based on facts and non professional approach while writing a caption for the news. I call it murder of journalism.” Said Peer Junaid, an author from Pulwama.
“Before labelling the district as criminal’s heaven you must have gone through latest NCRB report and see the status of other districts also. You are defaming the entire district without following the true parameters of scaling. There is a norm of criminal jurisprudence that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. So please avoid this naming and shaming journalism and don’t try to act like a judicial authority. Your byline for the said video story is totally defamatory for the district. Individual incidents can’t be generalised on entire district. District administration pulwama has done tremendous job in many fields. I believe you should seek apology for the same.” Wrote Naveed Para in the comment section of the video.
“Better to mind ur language don’t defame my district like this. Requesting lawyers association of Pulwama please file a case against this cheap mentality anchor.” Wrote Nazir Ahmad Sofi.
Accuracy and fairness, pre public verification, caution against defamatory writings are some norms of journalistic conduct which the said So called News Portal has completely violated while carrying this News about a particular district.
