{"id":5112,"date":"2020-09-10T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/?p=5112"},"modified":"2020-09-10T08:00:35","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T08:00:35","slug":"black-magic-and-other-accusations-indian-tv-channels-coverage-of-sushant-singh-rajputs-case-sparks-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/2020\/09\/10\/black-magic-and-other-accusations-indian-tv-channels-coverage-of-sushant-singh-rajputs-case-sparks-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Black magic and other accusations: Indian TV channels\u2019 coverage of Sushant Singh Rajput\u2019s case sparks criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>MUMBAI: The demise of a young Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput has transfixed India like no other news in a year of bad headlines.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The abrupt death of Sushant Singh Rajput has spurred a debate about the stigma of mental health, the rarefied insider world of Bollywood, and, more recently, condemnation of the media for the non-stop coverage of the duelling accusations between Rajput\u2019s family and his girlfriend.<\/p>\n<p>Mumbai police initially reported Rajput\u2019s death as accidental and local media called it a suicide. But the federal police agency is now investigating if there was any foul play and is questioning Rajput\u2019s girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty, and others.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bsac bsac-clearfix bsac-post-inline bsac-float-center bsac-align-center bsac-column-1\">\n<div id=\"bsac-312359-1503472818\" class=\"bsac-container bsac-type-custom_code \" data-adid=\"312359\" data-type=\"custom_code\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On Tuesday, Chakraborty was arrested by India\u2019s narcotics department, which is investigating a drugs case linked to the probe of Rajput\u2019s death. She denies any wrongdoing and her lawyer, Satish Maneshinde, called the arrest \u201ca travesty of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, the story has become a media obsession in India, fed by a wave of TV coverage still swelling almost three months after Rajput, 34, was found dead in his Mumbai apartment.<\/p>\n<p>In recent weeks, India\u2019s TV channels have given more airtime to the Rajput case than India\u2019s surging COVID-19 caseload, a plane crash and top political stories, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Council.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s boisterous TV networks, which include more than 350 news channels in English and several local languages, have flashed photos of Rajput\u2019s body, analysed his medical prescriptions, even used voodoo dolls and graphics of a skull to hype allegations that \u201cblack magic\u201d was performed on the actor.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rhea Chakraborty's black magic on Sushant Singh Rajput\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K954FcB_Xiw?feature=oembed\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The federal police, the High Court in Mumbai, and the government watchdog Press Council of India have all criticised coverage of the investigation.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI spent 21 years in television and I\u2019ve never seen a race to the bottom this bad,\u201d said Nidhi Razdan, who recently left Indian news network NDTV to teach journalism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt is a media trial. What else is it?\u201d she said. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen this kind of viciousness in coverage before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018SICKENING\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before his June 14 death, Rajput, most famous for portraying India\u2019s cricket captain in a biopic, and his girlfriend were more likely to be depicted as a down-to-earth \u2013 if Bollywood-beautiful \u2013 couple.<\/p>\n<p>Chakraborty, 28, was regularly hounded by reporters when she appeared in public, with news commentators opining on her innocence or guilt.<\/p>\n<p>Rajput\u2019s family claims she poisoned him, used black magic and is responsible for his death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere has been a conspiracy to break me and my family and my spirit,\u201d Chakraborty said in an interview with television anchor Rajdeep Sardesai in late August. \u201cIt is the systematic breakdown of an innocent family, an innocent girl who loved an innocent boy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, she was jostled by a pack of journalists as she tried to enter a narcotics department office in Mumbai, where police struggled to disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSickening,\u201d journalist Swati Chaturvedi wrote on Twitter. Alaka Sahani, a senior Indian Express journalist, said, \u201cThe visuals of Rhea being hounded makes my stomach churn and puke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The CBI, the federal police agency, said last month it was investigating allegations of abetment to suicide and criminal conspiracy. Its announcement came after requests from Sushant Singh Rajput\u2019s family and Chakraborty.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement last week, the CBI said some media reports on its probe were \u201cspeculative\u201d and \u201cnot credible.\u201d The bureau, it said, \u201chas not shared any details of the investigation with media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sushant Singh Rajput's Father KK Singh On Rhea Chakraborty: She Poisoned My Son\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FYKCClwFr2A?feature=oembed\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Press Council of India has urged the media not to \u201cconduct its own parallel trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some television editors have defended the coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Arnab Goswami, editor of Republic TV and a widely watched anchor known for his sharp-elbowed commentary, last week credited his channel\u2019s coverage with ensuring that Rajput\u2019s death wasn\u2019t \u201cwhitewashed\u201d as a suicide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI pushed, I pressurised, I connected the dots,\u201d he told news website OpIndia. \u201cIn the process, if I\u2019ve done a media trial, I\u2019m happy I have done one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Goswami did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. His main show, The Debate, ran last week with the hashtag #ArrestRheaNext.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after her arrest on Tuesday, the channel started using the tag #RheaArrested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MUMBAI: The demise of a young Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput has transfixed India like no other news in a year of bad headlines. The abrupt death of Sushant Singh Rajput has spurred a debate about the stigma of mental health, the rarefied insider world of Bollywood, and, more recently, condemnation of the media for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5114,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions\/5114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}