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right up to the Supreme Court. Many of the accused
were convicted earlier and an accused arrested
subsequently has recently been convicted by the
trial court.
Many ‘Compulsive contrarians’ who had made a
career out of creating social tensions in Gujarat start- issues. They crack up and collapse as three of them did
ed contending that the burning was self-engineered
by either the State or the Kar Sevaks. In the most
irresponsible act of the UPA Government, the Minis-
try of Railways under Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav selected,
without consultation of the Chief Justice of India, a
retired Supreme Court Justice, UN Banerjee, as a
Commissioner for Railway Enquiry.
The Judge willing to oblige the Government and its
political interest, submitted a report that there was
no burning by the mob and that the fire had taken
place from inside the compartment where the Hindu
pilgrims were. I regard this subversion of evidence
in order to cover up the heinous crime as the worst
stigma on the UPA Government and its Prime Minis-
ter. Such a report had no evidential value. Yesterday,
the trial court, after perusing all the evidence, has
convicted one more accused.
Nirav Modi arrest
Nirav Modi started cheating the Public Sector Banks
in 2011. It was a continuing crime. His crime was de-
tected in 2018 by the. Banks and investigating agen-
cies under the present Government. His assets have
been frozen, are being auctioned, a criminal prosecu-
tion against him have been filed, recovery action for
the dues owed to the banks and creditors are being
pursued. He is alleged to have been escaped from one
jurisdiction to another.
It goes to the credit of our investigating agencies
that they were pursuing him. On our request, he has
now been arrested and denied bail. There is a strong
unanswerable case against him and hopefully, India
tehelka / 30 april 2019 14 www.tehelka.com
will get him back. Whoever cheats India and its insti-
tutions cannot get away. He will be found out. This also
busts the fake campaign that the present Government
had anything to do with him.
There is an inherent danger in relying only on fake
yesterday. I hope the manufacturers’ of fake campaign
learns some lesson. They don’t seem to be considering
their brazen attitude.
In another blog post, Arun Jaitley wrote that con-
ventional print media followed conservative norms.
Every ‘news’ that a reporter brought was checked and
verified. Due care and caution was taken. Documents
were perused, alternative versions were taken and
then a ‘news’ which cast aspersions against individu-
als, was published. Television liberalised this conven-
tional view. The race for TRPs has led to every news
becoming a ‘Breaking News.’
Today there is a complete breakdown of ‘Breaking
News.’ The social media has discarded these norms al-
together. For many in social media, this rule has been
abandoned. They believe that norms have become
anachronic. Defamation is a right and the ‘targets’
reputation is irrelevant. If the right to publish is a part
of free speech, equally the right to live with honour
and reputation is an essential ingredient of the Right
to Life. Both are Fundamental Rights. One cannot
override the other.
experiMeNts with falsehood
An experiment with falsehood was attempted in the
Godhra train burning case. A ‘fire from within’ theo-
ry was created. In the Ishrat Jahan case, a successful
operation against Lashkar-e-Taiba module master-
mind by the intelligence and security agencies was
passed on as a political operation. These were the
precedents that ‘caravans’ of modern-day falsehood
seek to follow.
They now get ample support from ‘falsehood
perpetrators’ from the ‘Liars on the Wires’ and the
digital. Their bread and butter depend on falsehood.
The campaign in the Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi
cases, Rafale and the non-existent loan waivers are
prime examples of this in recent days. Jaitley wrote
that he was personally saddened when a media
organisation which had come out with distinction
in Bofors investigations, became a perpetrator of the
Rafale falsehood.
froM falsehood to forgery
It is evident from media reports that politicians,
amongst others, who stocked and distributed unau-
thorized cash have also been targeted in the cam-
paign against black money. Media had reported that
it was a search on a Congress leader which has found
detailed notings in his diary. The diary, amongst oth-