The Hindu Business Line : Chuck this practice!

There was once a time when the police were left in peace to investigate a crime, subject only to the supervision of higher authorities. But no longer. The inquisitive reporters of both the print and electronic media, especially the latter, ever insatiably hungry for ‘breaking news’ descend in droves the moment they sniff the commission of a crime, and keep the relatives and friends as also the investigating officials in a state of constant siege, following them in a frenzied manner, pelting questions at them and thrusting the mikes before them in the fervent hope of getting some titillating tidbits which their channels could flog for all they are worth.

As anyone watching the graphic TV visuals will testify, the investigating officials in particular have a hard time of it. They have to make every move of theirs under the glare of klieg lights. The coverage of the Jamia Nagar encounter, in which Inspector M. C. Sharma lost his life, left nothing to chance: The police officers making their way through the jostling swarms of reporters, their impromptu comments on what they were after, the bloody sequel — every event occupied hours over TV channels, the anchors and news readers repeating the same stories again and again with the same supporting visuals.

Following the arrest by the Maharashtra police of the software ‘techie’ working for Yahoo and some of his accomplices on suspicion of sending e-mails as from the Indian Mujahideen threatening bomb blasts at Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi, more than 30 police officials, led by the Joint Commissioner, were shown sitting in a phalanx on the podium fielding for more than an hour volleys of questions from the media and giving them a blow-by-blow account of their heroic exploit.

I find the practice of investigating officials willingly submitting themselves to these grilling-cum-gruelling sessions utterly purposeless, and even prone to scupper investigations. For one thing, it is an enormous waste of the time that should properly be spent on the investigation.

Media circus

Take the pageant put up in Mumbai to gloat over the capture of the ‘techie’: The nearly 500 man-hours lost in holding the media meet just to dispense half-digested, still-to-be-verified information could have been better spent to gather evidence and shorten the period for taking the case for trial. Instead, close to 100 police and media persons were trading hypotheses and speculations to no purpose whatsoever.

My second objection to the whose media circus in which the police become eager players is that, not being trained in facing media, the police officials shoot their mouths off with loose, hyperbolic and misleading statements, some of them capable of damaging the investigation or prematurely disclosing clues and leads, thereby helping the perpetrators make a clean getaway. Also, in their exuberance, the police are apt to hold forth putting their own spin on events and individuals, as if it was the final version.

Principle of transparency

Looking at from any angle, the lay-bare-all practice that has come to characterise police-media interactive meets will not only spoil a good case but show innocent persons in a bad light. This is quite apart from the practice giving rise to evils such as trial by media and invasion of privacy

It is not in public interest to carry the principle of transparency and the right to know to this ridiculous extent. If at all the unfolding events hold public importance, and their publication will advance public interest, it is enough if the police, or better still, the Home Department/Ministry, designate an in-house media savvy professional to give out the information at specified hours on particular days of the week.

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