Shekhar Gupta’s The Print pronounces punishment for the convicted in Kathua case even before the court does

On Monday, a Pathankot special court delivered a judgement to convict six out of the seven accused in the heinous rape and killing of 8-year old girl in Kathua of Jammu and Kashmir.

Judge Tejvinder Singh of the special court pronouncing verdict in Kathua Rape case convicted the six out of the total seven accused including four policemen. However, the court delayed the announcement of the sentence until 2 PM on Monday afternoon.

Interestingly, leftist news portal The Print, owned by controversial journalist and Editor Guild’s chief Shekhar Gupta declared the quantum of sentence to all the seven accused leaving many people in confusion. In one of its reports, which is now edited, the Print proclaimed the judgement even before the honourable court did.

In a report, it claimed that all the seven accused in Kathua rape and murder case were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Print has also disregarded facts by claiming that all the seven have been sentenced to life imprisonment despite the fact that only six accused have been convicted in the case. Main accused Sanjhi Ram’s son Vishal Jangotra was acquitted by the court.

The court is yet to deliver the sentence and has scheduled to do so at 2 PM this afternoon.

It is rather interesting to know whether the Print report which declared the judgement prior to the courts was just a routine editorial oversight or was it a case of them just letting the cat out of their bag by declaring a piece of information sourced from deep within the judiciary.

As their blunder was caught again, the Print team was quick enough to edit some information in the article with omitting out the ‘quantum of the sentence’ information from their earlier report.

“This report has been updated to correct the number of accused held guilty. It also incorrectly stated that the accused were sentenced to life term. The error is regretted,” stated the Print in its edited article.