Saving the best bit for the last

At the time of writing, the lead story on the award (best Congress mouthpiece two years in a row) winning CNN-IBN website reports a certain film by one Subhradeep Chakraborty. Now, the question is, what merits a lead story? Was the film released today? The incident in question is over 3-years old, an allegedly fake encounter killing that happened on June 15, 2004. Now here is the timeline:

June 12, 2004: Girl from poor family skips out of her Mumbai residence, stating that "she was meeting friends", "she was going for an interview" in the various versions.

June 15, 2004: Girl dead in an Indica car in Ahmedabad. Co-passenger - one Mr. Pranesh Kumar Pillai alias Javed Gulam Sheikh (businessman from Bombay) and two Pakistani citizens.

Sometime in 2004: Indian media reports that an LeT website claims that Ishrat Jahan was a member of their outfit. Counter reports claim that the website is fake and put up by Gujarat police. Yet another counter report: website more than two years old, hence it is out of question of being a Gujarat police plant.

12 May, 2007: The alleged LeT website issues an apology that the author had been sick and hence did not have time to correct the mistaken story of the alleged link of the slain girl with LeT. Also issues disclaimer - the site has no link with LeT. Blames Indian media of sensationalism. As far as apologies go, it sure took a long time, but as they say, better late than never.

Between 2004 and 2007, various dates: Modi bashing, Hindu baiting, secular indignation, minority anger, editorials.

But - no mention of rape - SO FAR.

10 December, 2007 (day before Gujarat state assembly election): CNN-IBN lead story claims that Ishrat Jahan's sister claimed that Ishrat had been "shot between her legs", which indicates she must have been raped.

We don't know what the truth is. A girl from Bombay ending up with a man with two names and two Pakistanis in the same car in Ahmedabad is pretty strange. The thing is, India is being overwhelmed by an unprecedented media blitzkrieg. While the law caps election expenditures, it is clear that we have seen nothing like the amount of money and manpower being poured in these elections. Of course the indirect campaign by the media and NGOs does not count. There is something about rape that stirs up primal emotions like no other. During the Sikh insurgency there was this story making rounds of a 16-year old girl having been "interrogated" in a police station all night long. Apparently it is being claimed that Sohrabuddin's wife Kausar Bi had been raped before being killed, although her body was found to have been burnt. The various accounts of the Godhra incident has a tea stall owner's daughter pulled into the compartment, an 18-year old passenger being abducted by Kar Sevaks etc. Even Sonia Gandhi claimed on her campaign trail that incidents of rape are on the rise in Gujarat. Now, three years later, we discover, just the day before Gujarat elections that a 19-year old girl who was shot more than 3-years ago had also been raped. As if fake encounter killings aren't bad enough by themselves.