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Panic as rockets fall near
Attari border villages, media hypes it up
WSN Network
 ATTARI
BORDER: Panic spread in the border villages last wek after a few
rockets fell on Friday night, but an emergency flag meeting during
the wee hours of Saturday seems to have stemmed any undue tension
between the BSF and Pakistan Rangers.
While the BSF
handed over a protest note to the Rangers, who denied having any
inkling of three rockets fired from the Pakistani side, no loss of
life or property was reported. Indian media hyped up the issue in a
major way even as saner elements in Pakistan tried to argue that the
rockets seem to be the handiwork of motivated quarters in Pakistan.
BSF, which
retaliated by opening firing on friday night, remained on alert
through Saturday, resorting to precautionary measures of not
allowing farmers to go across the fencing. Border area residents
from 36 villages, meanwhile, held a massive protest to express their
concern over the incident.
While the panic
among villagers was widely reported, what was ignored was the fact
that the villagers have been crying hoarse about clearing pending
dues of compensation to farmers for acquiring their land during wars
and flare-ups, restoring hardship allowance for tilling land across
the fencing and improving the infrastructure and job prospects of
people.
Rockets fell in
the proximity of villages of Dhanoei Khurd, Modei and Rattan Khurd.
The kind of hype
created over the rockets was matched by some belligerent reporting
in case of alleged Chinese incursions in
India.
One saner voice was that of a former Indian intelligence chief,
advising Indian journalists against sensationalising news, B. Raman
discussed why the Chinese military is unhappy with the Indian
media’s shrill anti-China rhetoric and why it could hurt both
countries’ interests.
Chinese
non-governmental analysts have also been critical of the way
sections of the Indian media sensationalised an incident involving
the temporary detention of a plane of the UAE air force at Kolkata
earlier this week for not correctly declaring that it was carrying a
consignment of arms and ammunition and ‘combat missiles’ to China.
According to
them, these arms and ammunition and missiles, which were
manufactured in China, had been sent to Abu Dhabi for displaying in
an international exhibition of military equipment and were being
taken back to China after the exhibition was over. These analysts
have expressed surprise over the manner in which the whole issue was
sought to be sensationalised by sections of the Indian media as if
it was a sinister development.
16
September 2009
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