New Delhi:
India's government on Friday accused three television networks of violating broadcasting regulations by showing interviews that criticized the execution of Yakub Memon, hanged last month for bombings that killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993.
In formal notices to the three networks, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the interviews were improper because they "cast aspersions on the integrity" of India's judicial system. The notices require the three networks - NDTV, ABP News and Aaj Tak - to explain why they should not face a possible broadcast suspension.
The move drew immediate protest from India's Broadcast Editors' Association, which said the notices were a "questionable pretext" for a larger government campaign to control news coverage. The association, representing top television news editors, cited several other "selective" actions by federal and state governments, including threats of defamation lawsuits and a new rule that limits news coverage of antiterrorism operations to "periodic briefings" by government press officers. "Media coverage cannot be restricted to official briefings," the association said in a statement on Saturday.
The notices come one week after the government abruptly ordered Internet service providers to block 857 pornography websites. Officials were forced to rescind the ban in the face of a furious backlash, but the episode fueled a growing perception that the government is quietly seeking greater control over what its citizens read or watch. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which is overseen by Arun Jaitley, one of the most powerful and influential members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet, did not respond on Saturday to phone and email messages seeking comment.
In interviews, television news executives said they were stunned by the government's crackdown, especially since all three networks gave significant airtime to government officials who defended Memon's execution. Until now, they said, government officials have usually been content to take their complaints over coverage to the News Broadcasting Standards Authority, an independent body set up by TV networks to police unfair or unethical news coverage.
"We don't think we have violated any regulation at all," said Sonia Singh, the editorial director of NDTV. "We feel our coverage was extremely fair and balanced. However, we are looking at the notice and will respond to the ministry."
The ministry cited ABP News and Aaj Tak, two popular Hindi-language networks, for their telephone interviews with a man known as Chhota Shakeel, a Mumbai underworld figure whom authorities have accused of helping plan the 1993 Mumbai bombings.
Shakeel, who has avoided arrest, called numerous Indian news organizations to angrily denounce Memon's execution. He told The Times of India it was "a legal murder." He told ABP News that Memon was hanged for the crimes of his brother, Tiger Memon, the alleged bombing mastermind who remains at large. "This is not justice; this is vengeance," he told Aaj Tak.
In the case of NDTV, the ministry's notice took issue with a 20-minute program the network broadcast on Aug. 1 called "Truth vs. Hype: The Riddle of Yakub Memon."
The program, hosted by Sreenivasan Jain, one of India's most respected broadcasters, carefully sifted through a controversy that erupted days before Memon's execution - whether India's intelligence and law enforcement agencies betrayed him by reneging on a promise to spare him the death penalty in exchange for his cooperation in describing how the bombings were planned, financed and executed.
Jain presented both sides of the dispute, interviewing those who said Memon was betrayed and scapegoated, as well as a former senior police official who said the only promise made to Memon was that he would receive "the great justice of India."
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting took issue with comments made at the end of the program by Majeed Memon, one of Memon's former lawyers. (The two men are not related.) The lawyer pointed to a defendant who he said was pardoned despite playing "10 times more" of a role in the bombings than Memon.
"If you show this pardon to any person outside India - U.K. authorities or U.S. authorities or the best brains in the world as far as criminal law is concerned - they will laugh at you," Majeed Memon said. "They will laugh at you. They'll say, 'Is this justice?'"
He went on to emphasize that he was not criticizing India's Supreme Court, which rejected Memon's final appeal only hours before his hanging at dawn on July 30. "I salute the Supreme Court for having at least afforded to him even the last opportunity at 3 a.m.," he said.
According to the ministry's notice, this interview "not only questioned the judicial system of India, but tended to denigrate the very institution by hinting that it was not at par with the judicial systems existing in the U.K. and U.S."
© 2015, The New York Times News Service