Rumours prompt channel blackout

MUMBAI: Rumours of fresh firing at several places across the city caused panic throughout Friday, prompting the government to even blackout the television news channels for a few hours in most parts of the city. SMSes about fresh attacks also kept floating around and added to the chaos.

It started with an accidental fire by a State Reserve Police jawan and a tyre burst, sparking the rumours of a fresh fidayeen attack at CST. A Hindi news channel even said that the terrorists had taken fresh hostages at CST.

Before the channel clarified that it was a rumour, people started running helter-skelter. Similar scenes were played out at Churchgate, Dadar, Chira Bazaar and Santa Cruz stations.

And when the rumours didn’t die down, the government blacked out news channels in most part of the city.

“The government is empowered to take such a step if they feel that it is important for national security and we readily complied,” said Govindraj Ethiraj, editor-in-chief of UTVi. Though, after receiving the order, a mail was reportedly sent to police commissioner Hassan Gafoor by the News Broadcasters’ Association asking him to “revoke the gag order”.

“While reporting on an event of this magnitude, some things go wrong sometimes. The news of the firing at CST was one such case. However, we made necessary amends and immediately apologised to our viewers when we realised that it was only a rumour,” said Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN.

Loksatta chief editor Kumar Ketkar thought the blackout, when it happened, was a good thing. “It was clearly a security move, and in fact something a little late in the day. Even though television sets in both the hotels were cut, the terrorists had cell phones which were enough for them to receive information from their allies outside,” he said.