BY BIKRAM VOHRA
Trial by TV continues in India with vigour and a complete absence of legal protocol. I was watching one talk show last evening and the way it went they might as well have tied Shashi Tharoor to a post, given him a last cigarette and shot him.
Someone was teed off that Mr Tharoor refused to come to the studios or be on a TV show and answer questions following the announcement that his wife was murdered. From my point of view Mr Tharoor is not duty bound to respond to a commercial TV station’s invitation. To equate his refusal with guilt and to slur him with innuendo that he was, somehow, responsible for his wife’s murder seems extravagant and is almost a sort of gleeful visual rubbernecking.
What is most scary is that the ‘truth’ is now coming out because the governments have changed. If police investigations depend on who is in power then that is a bit of stigma and cause for deep concern.
Equally frightening is the fact that India has no adequate labs for even a poor episode of CSI and has to dispatch viscera a year later to the UK for confirmation of the poison cocktail so used.
There are six poisons mentioned and it is the part that beats my grasp. If we have identified these six poisons then why is there a need to send the samples abroad. And if we haven’t done that where are the six ‘possibles’ coming from and why is polonium and snake venom, heroin and three other deadly elements names that are being bandied about. It is hard to believe that all six were administered to Sunanda Pushkar at the same time or at different times. Without being facetious this is overkill. A professional hit man would not beat her and suffocate her, set up the scene then administer multiple poisons. He’d be in and out of there in seconds.
After the news broke 24 hours ago and the massive coverage and opinion mushroomed into a cloud cover one is most confused. By all means interrogate Mr Tharoor but don’t damn him for being stunned that his wife was murdered. Being stunned is not an admission of guilt.
Too much holier than thou media exploiting another individual’s discomfort.
Shut up till a line is drawn prima facie linking the husband and the manner of death of his wife. Till then if wants to stay off camera so be it.