When first videos surfaced, of rioters with firearms and petrol bombs on Tahir Hussain's terrace, you simply said he was not present there. When his presence there became certain, you said: What do you want him to do, become another Ehsan Jafri! +
+ You failed to even notice selective reporting from Hussain's lane, how the Hindu business (burn down by rioters) absolutely next to his office-cum-residence was ignored. Ignored because when some people left their newsrooms, they had already made up their mind on what to show +
+ You ignored the Hindu residents of Moonga Nagar, opposite Hussain's residence, suffering for hours from Feb 24 afternoon. How at the first sight of a reporter, all women and children came rushing out in tears, desperate to say what they had seen coming from Hussain's terrace +
+ You did not ask: who are the people who in the middle of a 'pogrom' against them managed to kill a Police Head Constable and almost killed a DCP and an ACP? Who climbed onto a building and first hacked and then burnt a 20-year-old man, a poor worker in a sweet shop? +
+ You did not ask: how did people, in the middle of a 'pogrom' against them got hold of giant drums of dangerous, inflammable liquid which they brought on pushcarts in Hindu areas and burnt down properties worth crores? +
+ The trained eyes of your reporters could not even see the farce of 'damage' to the Muslim-owned Rajdhani school, how someone had randomly kicked a garbage can (to prove vandalism) and burnt a wall, while from the Hindu-owned DRP school, a piece of paper could not be retrieved +
+ Your sharp rebuttals went limp when a political activist lied through her teeth about bodies lying openly in Shiv Vihar and police not allowing reporters inside, exactly at a time when dozens of reporters were combing through same streets +
+ Besides those who made documentaries because someone in a communally raging area slapped them, have a chat someday with old-school crime reporters like @bhavatoshsingh - ask him how he saved himself, how the JK News journalist was shot, the acid and boiling water on policemen +
+ Things you want changed will not change. They will increasingly slip away from your hands. Books will find other publishers, they will make money, their whatsapps will go viral. Remove your blinkers first. Have the courage to run your finger on both blades of the sword.
