Fuelled by Leaked Evidence and Illegal Surveillance, Media Trials the New Normal in India

Source:-https://thewire.in

State surveillance has always posed the biggest threat to a citizen’s right to privacy. The 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree that compromised the privacy of citizens in Nazi Germany, as well as the 2013 Snowden revelations about mass surveillance in the US, are only a few examples. Any gathering of intelligence by the state for legal investigations, even if revealed by third parties such as telecom operators or forensic analysts, is strictly classified.

However, a new trend in the reportage of the Sushant Singh Rajput and Hathras cases by the right-wing Indian media puts a question mark on the classified status of legal evidence. Pro-government media channels and platforms are now directly obtaining classified evidence from investigating agencies and the police. This illegal supply of evidence that is then broadcast on television and circulated on social media is one of the many dangerous turns that the Indian news media has taken.

On October 2, the audio clip of a private conversation between Tanushree Pandey, an India Today journalist, and Sandeep, the brother of the Hathras gang-rape victim, was published by OpIndia, a pro-government website. OpIndia wrote, “Throughout the conversation, Tanushree Pandey appears insistent on coaxing out a very specific statement from Sandeep while the latter remains non-committal on his statement and appears hesitant to toe the line that the journalist wants him to toe.”

However, it is clear from the conversation that Pandey was only doing her duty as a journalist. She was asking Sandeep to send her a video recording of the victim’s father testifying that the family was under a lot of pressure from the UP government to admit that they were satisfied with the investigation. As reported by India Today, the phones of Sandeep and the victim’s entire family were also seized by the police later.

Following the release of the audio clip, India Today issued an official statement questioning the legal grounds on which Pandey’s or Sandeep’s phones were tapped. India Today also questioned the BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya about how the audio clip reached the news organisation and social media. As one would expect, Malviya did not provide any real answers, only mentioning that such clips can be recorded, leaked and circulated easily in a “high paced tech era”.