The terrorists aimed to bring the Taj hotel down.
They did not aim to bring the Taj hotel down.
They phoned headquarters in Pakistan during the attacks.
They did not phone headquarters in Pakistan during the attacks.
They worked at the Taj/Oberoi before the attacks.
They did not work at the Taj/Oberoi before the attacks.
They rented rooms at Nariman House.
They did not rent rooms at Nariman House.
All the "denials" above are from The Hindu, India's most authoritative newspaper, quoting reliable sources like the police and the NSG (see for example this and this). Where then did the original, evidently false, assertions, arise from?
Don't the original false reports stick in most peoples' minds forever? And if this is the level of our confusion on relatively simple, local facts, how are we ever going to make a convincing case to the world about the origins of this conspiracy?
1 comment:
While it is true that the Hindu is a responsible news paper ( I enjoy the Op-ED pages particularly), these "denials" may also be premature and may or may not stand the test of time.
Take for example the following "denial" from one of the reports in the Hindu"
"Police sources also said there was no substance in reports that the terrorists had communicated with their command headquarters in Pakistan using mobile phones."
Notice how the "reports" and their denial from "police sources" are more or less on equal footing of vagueness.
[[ for example. "what are these reports", and "who are the police sources" are more or less equally valid questions which are not answered in the news item]]
I do however agree, that an unsubstantiated report that is emotionally troubling and may even be inflammatory is more dangerous than their unsubstantiated denials.
Let the dust settle, let there be a little healing in our minds; lets remember the irony that significant number of deads are muslims, and lets hope that even those who are clamoring to settle score with call for a war would learn from the fact that nothing has been achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq by a US administration hell bent changing the world through fire power alone!
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