The Media Game on Kanpur Blast
By Abdul Rashid Agwan
The coverage of mainstream media on the Kanpur bomb blast of 28 October seems selective and cautious. The national and local media informed the next morning that it was a nasty outcome of some illegal cracker factory; however, investigation is now indicating that it was a bomb blast. The incident has once again brought to the fore how media acts and reacts differently when some Hindu miscreants are involved in such heinous crimes.
The headings and contents of reporting in this regard present an interesting slant of media. For instance, the title chosen by Times of India reads “Four killed in Kanpur health centre explosion”; the Indian Express says “Police blame firecrackers” and Telegraph called it “Cracker blast near Kanpur health centre”. Almost the same story flashed in both the English and Hindi newspapers. Interestingly, India Today’s website mentions the same morning about a ‘crude bomb’ behind the incident. The caption of www.worldnews.net was more obvious with “Kanpur Bomb Blast at Community Center Today”. The later headlines show that in spite of the fact that police initially called it a cracker blast there were some specific hint of it being a ‘bomb blast’, which the national and local media missed in the first place, and now it is underplaying and ignoring the incident as a frivolous thing. It is really strange that no administrator or responsible staff of the PHC has been taken to task for their apparent long ignorance or connivance of ‘illegal bomb manufacturing unit’ running in a government quarter. The administration is silent on this exigency.
Kanpur is occasionally hitting media headlines for last few years for incidental bomb explosions here and there. On 25 August 2008 two Bajrang Dal activists were killed. For almost two years now, the police had been groping in the dark to solve the case in which Rajiv Mishra and Bhupinder Singh were killed when an explosion happened in a room of the house owned by Mishra’s father. Bhupinder Singh was the Bajrang Dal's city chief 10 years ago and according to the Hindi daily Hindustan, Mishra was present at the RSS shakha in the morning on the day of explosion. The police have recovered some bombs, lead oxide, Potassium Nitrate, red lead and other important elements of bomb making from the place of explosion. Swami Asimanand, an accused in the Malegaon and Ajmer Dargah blasts, has come under the scanner of the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad in the Kanpur blast case also but there is no breakthrough yet.
On 22 August 2003, seven persons, including five members of a family and their tenants were injured in a powerful bomb blast in Colonelganj police circle of this Manchester of India. The police said that some hand-made country bombs kept in the house of Sayeed, an alleged criminal in Bakarganj locality, had exploded.
In another incident in the city nine persons of Kanpur’s Bajaria locality were injured on October 14, 2008. It was reported, “The explosion lacked intensity and appeared to be aimed more at creating panic in the Purani Sharab Gaddi area that has a long history of communal flare-ups. The bombs were kept in a carry bag — made of thick, dark green canvass — dangling from a bicycle, which had been rented”. Some Kamal Sahu was arrested by the police but no further developments in this regards are known.
In case of the latest episode in which 4 dead and 8 injured, including four children and eight women, even after a couple of days most papers are ignoring the developments on the issue. However, some are pushing the line by pointing that “the incident is a grim reminder of several such incidents in the past which have not only damaged property, but also claimed lives. Though the illegal activities continue throughout the year, the police, district administration and the department of industries have turned a blind eye.”
Ironically, the latest explosion exploded a government quarter of a local primary health centre from were the said ‘illegal cracker factory’ was being operated, as briefed by the deputy inspector-general of police Prem Prakash. He informed, “Small-size crackers were being produced at the unit in the quarters. We have collected samples of them from the spot of the blast. Further investigations are on. It does not appear to be a terror act.” Inspector-general G.L. Meena corroborated him by saying that raw materials used to manufacture crackers had been found in the debris. However, the ward boy Rajesh, who was allotted the quarter of the primary health centre of Kalyanpur, narrated a different story to the police when arrested as a main accused along with 85 live crude bombs. He said that his brothers in law Sudhir and Mangal Singh were using the quarter for manufacturing bombs which were supplied to organized groups of criminals.
It is evident here that media uncritically swallows police version, tends to dilute gravity of things or simply ignore facts when individuals of Hindu community are found involved in bomb manufacturing, their supply and explosion, especially when the culprits are found linked to the RSS or its many offshoots. On the contrary, when some Muslim names are rightly or wrongly suggested in similar episodes, the same media takes the steering wheel; lead the police in digging the story and even some time pressurize it to take a particular line of investigation. Media is exhibiting such a pernicious tendency at the cost of its own credibility.
How it is that the police and media toss on tips of some Muslim names in similar incidents and within a few hours trace out the ‘mastermind’, his scornful past and terror links, whereas the trail of bomb blasts in the Manchester of India for several years now has failed to reassure the same ingenuity and professional acumen of both police and media!
