Media mum over turn in Murree girl’s death case

ISLAMABAD: The media has gone silent after yet another story that hit international headlines turned out to be fake.

Repeated talk shows were held, columns were written and international media carried the story as if Pakistan had become unsafe for young girls to live but as the drop scene of 19-year Murree school teacher’s death has happened and it has been proved forensically that the girl committed suicide after being ditched by the boy whom she was in love with obsessively; the anchors have lost interest in the story.

The newsrooms are not sending their Digital Satellite News Gathering vans to Murree to tell the public the story has turned out to be untrue and the wrong facts were told to the public. But why would the channels do that? It doesn’t sell. 

The media runs a one-way traffic whenever there is such an event and every channel tries to beat the other in whatever they could ascertain, right or wrong, but no one cares when the story comes out to be different. Just days ago, the channels and activists of a particular mindset were on a “mission” when a Kailash girl converted to Islam.

Stories were run that the girl was harassed and forcefully converted, stories in international media were run but later that girl herself had to come forward to speak out the truth that she had changed her religion by her own will.

The situation in, the otherwise peaceful, region had become tense and people had  come at loggerheads over the issue. The issue dies down soon after the girl’s revelations. Since then no one tried to investigate who were the ones who tried to sell the fake story to national and international media while the facts were otherwise. 

The media also went frenzy over so-called gang-rape of a young girl in December 2015 and it was portrayed as if eight political workers had gang raped a girl. Talk shows were held, a narrative was built and stories were run but a few days later, the girl changed her statement that she had went to meet a boy on her birthday and stated before a judge that she was only raped by that boy and was not gang raped. 

Another classic case if of an alleged video of a girl being flogged by Taliban in Swat and it was after emergence of that video that the entire narrative of Nizam-e-Adal regulations changed and an operation was conducted in Swat. But years later, it was disclosed before the Supreme Court of Pakistan that the video of Swat flogging was fake and had nothing to do with people of Swat. All the human rights activists and media anchors preferred keeping mum after the revelations in the Supreme Court. 

In the recent case of burning of 19-year teacher in Murree too, either facts were deliberately twisted especially by the electronic media or no one tried to dig out the facts in the first place. Emotional columns were written, the international media presented the story as a juicy one but the truth was not told for the reasons better known to the journalists themselves. Pakistan may not be the safest country in the world and rights of women are violated on daily basis and women are subjected to violence as well but why does human rights activists and media unnecessary highlight such stories which do not have any base and why the same media does not abreast its viewers and readers about the true facts regarding same stories which it has been running with twisted and wrong information? Will any television channel run a marathon transmission on who could a father compel her dying daughter to name his opponents only to get a strong case registered against them as has happened in the case of burning Murree teacher. Maria’s father was seen asking her daughter to blame his opponents which the dying daughter did thus resulting in a fake murder case against Shaukat, Haroon and others. Now there are rumors that the case could end in a settlement if the family of the boy pays millions to the father of the deceased girl. But after the forensic examination and investigation, the case is no more a murder but suicide and how Maria’s father settles it now is yet to be seen.