Senior journalist Siddharth Varadarajan on Saturday said “non-deliverance of justice” in Pathribal fake encounter case, which he had reported, still pains him.
Sharing his experience about reporting on the case way backin 2000, when he was working with Times of India, Varadarajan said despitefacts showing victims were not involved in any act of violence, non delivery ofjustice pains him as a journalist.
“Pathribal fake encounter case still pains me. I was withTOI those days. We got DNA reports from CDFD Hyderabad forensic lab. We provedhow J&K government had fudged DNA samples of the victims…we were able toprove that victims were civilians since DNA samples of policemen were shown assamples of victims who were actually females…”, he said.
Varadarajan, who has over a two-decade career, both as areporter and an editor, was interacting with media students here at the officeof Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement, headed by bureaucrat-turned-politicianShah Faesal.
Varadarajan said since Kashmir was a “conflictzone” for a very long time, it is the reason for high quality writings andreportage emanating from the region.
“…Kashmir is very important to us editorially. I thinkmaximum reports we published from any states at The Wire, would be from JK. AndI would say the reason for this partiality towards Kashmir is partly in our owninterest, the value of the stories,” said Varadarajan, who resigned as aneditor at The Hindu newspaper in 2011 to launch his own news portal The Wire.
“It always amazes me, the amount of efflorescence of writingtalent here (in Kashmir). Actually every week I hear from a new freelancer or anew writer….every week lots of people approach us and with a very high qualitywritings….the fact is that the reason for such talent in JK is the situationhere. Being in conflict zone for a long period of time provides very fertileterritory for journalists (but) it is also very stressful. We are seeing theresults of the quality of work and that is very heartening…”
Varadarajan said in the present times when “criticalreporting” is termed “anti national”, journalists should focus on groundreporting to get the facts to “deflate propaganda bubble”.
“Critics are called anti-national. There has been a longhistory to it. It was started by Indira Gandhi when she starting giving it aname of foreign hand or conspiracy. Rajiv Gandhi used it during Punjabagitation when people were talking about human rights and Bhopal tragedy. Wehave dealt with it. Now labeling is at higher and wider scale. Now people inUniversities, NGOs are being targeted…,”he said.
Varadarajan, who started his career with Times of India in1995 urged the students to rely on facts and adopt as principle “investigationand interrogation” to question the claims of people in power.
He also urged media students to get well acquainted withfiling of RTIs to bring truth to fore. “Using RTI skillfully is important. Itcould be used to understand implementation of various government schemes onground such as Jan Dhan and Ujjwala schemes,” he said.