REFLECTIONS

The 26/11 attacks were covered “Live” by the television media. For almost 60 hours straight, we had a view of the action taking place outside the Taj, Oberoi and Nariman house from different angles, depending on which news channel your were watching.

So did the masters of the terrorists.

And the terrorists had mobile/satellite phones to communicate with their masters, enabling them to keep track of the whereabouts of the commandos and they sneaked from one room to another in complete darkness.

While this knowledge was given to us by the news channels themselves, none of them stopped the live broadcast of events to protect the safey of the hostages or the commandos who were risking their lives.

It was already common knowledge while seige was still going on that the terrorists were trying to communicate with their handlers using mobile phones and/or satellite phones. If that was really the case, and the media had knowledge of it, why did they not try to stop the coverage?

In the their oneupmanship for TRPs, the word used more frequently than terrorists was the word “Exclusive”. Every channel seemed to be having exclusive coverage of the events that were going on from a different angle.

When the airdropping of the commandos began at the Nariman house the sound of the helicopters would have been a big give away, but we were easily able to see the number of commandos that were mounting the operation. It would have definitely helped if the terrorists did not have knowledge of this.

No doubt, I was one of the many who sat glued to their television sets throughout the entire event, but I realized that it was wrong to show such coverage just for the sake of TRPs. When the media has such great freedom, thhey should behave responsibly and know when to put national security above “Exclusive” coverage.

It is obvious that the operation would have been much shorter had the terrorists no knowledge of the setup of the security forces outside the Taj and oberoi.

Vishal Dadlani ( the music composer of movies like Om Shanti Om ) has started a campaign to encourage or force the media to behave more responsibly. He plans to go to the courts for this purpose, and has started a signature campaign for the same. Readers of this article can go to the website http://smallchange.in and put in their comments and support for the movement. I strongly encourage everyone to spread the word, it is in the interest of our national security.