New Delhi: It was an assortment of debates during prime time on Tuesday as channels broached topics ranging from the gruesome gangrape of a 20-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras to Amnesty International’s closing down of its India operations. News18 India focused on the recently passed farm bills, and Aaj Tak ignored all of these issues and continued to discuss actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
India Today anchor Rajdeep Sardesai criticised the police investigation in the Hathras case. “The police for two weeks tells us that they are still not clear whether it is a gangrape or rape…This cover-up has to stop,” he said.
Former UP Director General of Police, Vikram Singh, agreed, talking about the “inbuilt resistance to correct registration of crime and if they do register, they will dilute it to the charges so that it will never make headlines.”
BJP spokesperson Anila Singh got defensive, saying, “I know the mindset of [UP Chief Minister] Yogi Adityanath. He has committed himself to reducing crime and criminals in the state… When it comes to crime against women, why do you want to politicise it and divide it along caste and religious lines?”
On NDTV 24×7, Sreenivasan Jain discussed Amnesty International halting its India operations due to the “incessant witch hunt”.
According to the government, however, Amnesty’s accounts were frozen as it had been “receiving foreign funds illegally”.
Supreme Court Advocate Vrinda Grover said that various agencies were brought in to tarnish the credibility of the NGO, which had been regularly taking out reports on the state of human rights in Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi during the February 2020 riots.
She wondered, “If there are illegalities in some funds, it would fall under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. What we do know is the Income Tax, the CBI as well as the ED (Enforcement Directorate) has raided. What is the role of the ED here?”
The BJP’s Lalitha Kumaramangalam naturally defended the government, “The government has made it clear that Amnesty has been in violation of various laws especially to do with their funding. This has been regardless of whether the BJP is in power or the UPA has been in power. I don’t understand why we’re politicising this.”
Times Now‘s Navika Kumar took a break from reading out Bollywood actors’ WhatsApp chats and rubbished Amnesty’s allegation based on an “investigation” by the channel back in 2018.
Political commentator Sumanth C. Raman, however, pointed out that the Nobel Prize-winning organisation is a credible NGO. “This organisation, because it stands for human rights, obviously has issues not just with governments in one or two countries, but in several countries.”
Congress leader turned critic Shehzad Poonawalla offered up a pun to summarise his feelings on the subject: “They can’t be amnestied to break laws even if their name is Amnesty.”
Meanwhile, Aaj Tak continued its focus on the Narcotics Control Bureau’s probe into Bollywood actors’ alleged drug use, a probe that began as an investigation into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput.
The BJP’s Mamta Kale said, “It has been clear since Day 1 that Sushant Singh Rajput did not commit suicide. This is not a conspiracy theory, all evidence points towards this. There are mysterious circumstances.”
Actor Nasir Abdullah spent most of the debate with his camera off in protest against his voice not being heard. And when he was visible on camera, he sounded like a broken record, repeating “Please listen to me.”
“Big-shot doctors are giving their opinion about what has happened, why are you opining about mental health issues?” Abdullah managed to ask.
