Rajdeep Sardesai, consulting editor at the India Today Group who was previously with CNN-IBN, was acquitted by a Hyderabad court after he issued an apology in November last year for reporting fake news on Sohrabuddin’s alleged encounter killing.
Sardesai issued an unconditional apology to the court for a programme he had run in May 2007, titled ’30 Minutes – Sohrabuddin, The Inside Story’, as Editor in Chief of CNN-IBN.
In the programme, Rajdeep tried to frame Gujarat government, which was then led by Modi and Shah, and Rajiv Trivedi, who was then part of the Hyderabad Special Investigation Team probing the Sohrabuddin case. PM Modi was then CM of the state and Amit Shah was the home minister.
“Police sources say Vanjara and Pandian nabbed Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi in Bidar with the help from SP Rajiv Trivedi of the Hyderabad Special Investigation Unit…Rajiv Trivedi provided cars with fake number plates in which Sohrabuddin was brought to Ahmadabad and then killed in a fake encounter,” read the program.
Later the Andhra Pradesh government filed a case against Rajdeep Sardesai and ten reporters of CNN-IBN. Sardesai has now filed an affidavit in the court, issuing unconditional apology, which reads, “I further submit that I also realise that there is nothing to substantiate the allegation that Rajiv Trivedi provided cars with fake number plates in which Sohrabuddin was brought to Ahmedabad and then killed in a fake encounter which news telecast by us about Shri Rajiv Trivedi, IPS was also false.”
In the year 2005, Sohrabuddin Sheikh was shot down by a group of policemen in Gujarat. The police claimed that Sohrabuddin had an association with Lashkar-e-Taiba and also the ISI. According to the police, he was planning a communal chaos in the state of Gujarat and assassination of an important political leader. It was claimed that the encounter of Sohrabuddin was a fake one and the home minister of the state Amit Shah directed the killing of Sohrabuddin, his wife and of Tulsiram Prajapati, the witness to the incident. The case was later investigated by the CBI.
Sardesai has accepted that the whole programme against Trivedi and the Gujarat government was an agenda, but, he has no shame in doing all this. Last year, the media including Sardesai tried to frame the then BJP chief Amit Shah in the death of Justice Loya.
Justice Brijmohan Harikishan Loya was the CBI Special Judge in the Sohrabuddin encounter case. He passed away on December 1st, 2014 while attending a wedding. The case was still under trial when Justice BH Loya died. The cause of death was a cardiac arrest.
“Don’t harass us: Judge Loya son says to media. Same son in Feb 2015, according to a friend of his, wrote: ‘if anything happens to us, xxx and others involved in conspiracy will be responsible.’ So what changed? Or who changed what?” tweeted Rajdeep Sardesai.
Don't harass us: Judge Loya son says to media. Same son in Feb 2015, according to a friend of his, wrote: 'if anything happens to us, xxx and others involved in conspiracy will be responsible.' So what changed? Or who changed what?
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) January 14, 2018
The left-liberal media establishment of India is the epitome of hypocrisy. The people in this establishment take ‘high moral ground’ in front of the camera. Be it on women empowerment, eve teasing, transparency in businesses, the crackdown on black money so on and so forth. But when it comes to adhering to these principals in personal life or office environment, they violate almost every rule of these principals.
The high moral ground taken by the left-liberal media establishment remains in front of the camera. In back rooms, the left-liberal journalists behave as tax evaders, money launderers, sexual predators, sycophants and what not. This establishment is responsible for informing the public, if their personal dealings are full of scams and biases, how it could be expected that they would tell ‘right’ story to populous of the country.
The interesting thing is they cry foul of ‘political witch hunt’ when some legal action is taken against them. The establishment’s pleas for freedom of the press whenever their corporate wrongdoing is exposed but the question is how objectivity is expected from these tainted media houses.