New Delhi: The first edition of Verdict - Indian news television's first truly interactive show where Rajdeep Sardesai engages people from both sides of the divide and debates the big issue from one city every week - has generated a healthy debate on a whole gamut of issues concerning the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.
While the judgment in the case is yet to be completed, readers and viewers are already discussing several crucial questions: Has justice been done in the 1993 blasts case? Has Maharashtra become the country's new terror capital? Has it been discriminatory justice?
“I feel justice has not been done. Because, to give a good justice for a case, a judiciary doesn’t need such a long time,” says Shweta from Mysore. “Late justice means little to the victims and the survivors.”
“We need an Army to hunt down these jihadis wherever they hide, be it Pakistan or Dubai. The Congress uses the intelligence services to run sting operations against RSS and the BJP, but not against anti-nationals,” wrote someone named Kash.
”A verdict is a verdict is a verdict. CNN-IBN’s Verdict on the delay of the 1993 Mumbai blasts judgment was on time. Even the ruling Congress accepted responsibility live. Days are really changing, but still a long way to go,” complimented Shankar.
“I firmly believe that lots of discussion will help all of us to realise and arrive at certain solutions. Be it Muslims or Hindus, people sometimes tend to justify terror done by their community as the retaliation of the previous heinous act. This is very unfortunate in the great country where once Gandhi was born” wrote Santosh.
An overwhelming sense in the reactions of most of the readers and audience was that there was an urgent need to reform the judicial system, a point even the panel on Verdict unanimously agreed to.
“We will have to keep debating similar issues in the future too if nothing is done to our judicial system,” writes Subrahmaniam. “We debate about our law system only during such high-profile cases. It’s sad that we haven’t even made an attempt to change the laws created more than a century ago.”
S Khurana agrees with Subrahmaniam. For him, “in India, justice is a utopia.”
“Where witnesses are intimidated, bought and sold, accused terrorises the victim, police side with the highest bidder, prosecution is in collusion with defence, perjury is routine, where lawyers routinely fabricate evidence without batting an eyelid, judges are under cloud, it is foolhardy to expect justice,” he says.
Many of the readers complimented media’s role as a watchdog in such cases.
“India is shining not because of BJP or Congress, but because media is making it shine,” says Shankar. “Media seem to be a ray of hope at the end of a tunnel. But their motives are suspect. Enhancing TRP ratings are their sole motive,” adds S Khurana.
But some others had brickbats to hurl at CNN-IBN. “Media trials are getting currency in Indian media and society. Majoritarianism rules the roost in Indian media. This is worst kind of populism, even worst than populist politics,” says Raghab.
Then there were readers who felt it was wrong to have a show at all and worse still with a panel, which gave a ‘one-sided verdict’.
For Santosh, debating whether justice has been done in the ’93 blasts case in inadequate since “the entire verdict has not been given yet”.
“I think the court should prohibit such shows until after the verdict is fully given and guilty are properly handled. Such discussions are without evidences to be judged, then what is the use of it but to create another communal backlash,” he said.
Another reader, Raghab also felt this was the worst kind of ‘populism’. “There is no denying the fact that there is a need to reform the legal system, but we don’t need a Kangaroo court.”
Madhu Iyengar says, “The panel on the show was rubbish. I am really surprised that CNN-IBN would make such a horrific mistake of having a wrong panel. Frankly, I feel Rahul bose wanted to stay in Bollywood so he wanted to be secular.”
Vivek Aroskar also felt Rahul Bose was the “wrong choice for the chosen panel” and he spoke without actually understanding the plight of the common man.
“Rahul Bose says we should not give bribe and complain to concerned authorities. For a well-known personality like him this is possible. However, for a common man it does not work,” Aroskar said.
Anand G wrote in to say: “The panel on the programme was communal. I am sorry to say this as your programme somewhere has given the verdict that Mumbai blasts are acts of revenge because of the Babri demolition”
“And as far as justice in the ’93 blast case is concerned, Sanjay Dutt, too, should get the same and tag of a terrorist, let’s not be communal here,” he added.
R S Sarma had problems with the panel having lost track of the discussion. “The eminent panel has lost focus talking of -- Hindu fundamentalism, discriminatory justice, 1992 Babri Masjid demolition as a cause to be looked at, delayed justice, whether death penalty should be imposed,”
“The panel has been generally insensitive to basic points and was beating around the bush,” Sharma added.
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