New Delhi, Feb 22, DHNS: A producer on the output desk of the ZEE news has resigned from the media group, saying the news channel has put the life of Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar and others in jeopardy by airing videos which did not substantiate that pro-Pakistani slogans were raised by them at the controversial event on February 9.
Making his resignation public on his Facebook timeline, Vishwa Deepak also charged the ZEE television with airing such videos to project Kumar and other members of the left-backed JNU student union members as “anti-nationals” while toeing the line of the Centre led by Narendra Modi.
“Are we the mouthpieces of the BJP or the RSS that we will do whatever they say? The video didn’t have any ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans at all, yet we played it repeatedly to spread madness and mayhem. How did we believe that some voices coming out of the dark belonged to Kanhaiya and his companions? Due to our biases, we heard “long live Indian courts” as “long live Pakistan” and working on the government line, brought the careers, their hopes and aspirations and families of some people to the brink of destruction,” he stated in his resignation.
Deepak has resigned from the ZEE news on February 19. “I have resigned to maintain sanctity of journalism. I was thinking of this for quite a long time because the editorial ethics was being compromised ever since Narendra Modi became the prime minister on May 2014. More or less every newsroom (in other media organisation) has been communalised today, but situation at our organisation was even more appalling,” he told Deccan Herald.
Deepak said that the ZEE news aired two videos to create an impression that Kanhaiya and others raised anti-national slogans during the event on the campus.
“As the main video, brought by reporter, did not have Pakistan Zindabad slogans, they aired another video in which anti-India sloganeering could be heard but no one could be clearly seen without confirming its authenticity or location. I do not know from where they brought this second video,” he added. He said that he was unable to face himself after sedition cases were filed against Kanhaiya and others foowling Zee News report.