On the 30th of December, Hindi news channel News24 reported a speech made by Bihar police DGP SK Singhal. In the tweet posted by News24, they reported that DGP SK Singhal had said in a speech that women who marry without the consent of their parents end up in the prostitution business. The statement reported by News24, however, was wildly misreported.
As can be seen, the tweet by News24 claims that DGP SK Singhal said, “मां-बाप की मर्जी से करें शादी, वरना वैश्यावृति में जाना पड़ सकता है”, which translated to “Marry with the consent of your parents, otherwise you might end up in prostitution”.
However, even a cursory listen to the video reveals how grossly incorrect News24’s reportage was about the speech made by DGP Singhal.
In the video, DGP Singhal says, “Another problem that has arisen is that for marriage, many girls run away from their homes without the permission of their parents. This leads to extremely tragic consequences. Many are murdered, whether it’s a boy or a girl. And many of the girls are pushed into prostitution and there is no direction in their life. Their life does not progress properly and they don’t know what they can or cannot do. And the tragic consequences of this are also borne by the family members and the parents of the child. I urge parents to constantly talk to their sons and daughters, give them a good upbringing, understand their feelings properly and keep them connected with the family with a lot of sensitivity”.
It is evident that DGP was talking about the consequences of boys and girls running away from their families and homes to elope without the parents knowing about their whereabouts. It is true that many girls are lured to elope and then end up being pushed into a life of crime, flesh trade or end up being a victim of crime themselves. In fact, the DGP also spoke about boys who run away from their families and end up being pushed into a directionless life of crime.
In the speech, the DGP in fact addressed the parents and did not blame the children. He said that the parents had to be more involved with their children and understand their feelings. He also said that constant lines of communication must be opened by the parents with their children to ensure that they don’t take any wrong steps that they might regret later.
A simple statement about saving children from a life of crime, becoming the victim of a crime or being pushed into flesh trade was twisted by News24 to insinuate that DGP Singhal spoke about how girls end up becoming prostitutes if they don’t marry with the consent of their parents. The insinuation was that rather evident – that the DGP was espousing traditional views of arranged marriage and that if the children get married to a partner of their choice, they become prostitutes. However, that is not remotely what the DGP had said.
At the time of publishing this report, News24 had not deleted/retracted their tweet and issued an apology for twisting the statement of DGP SK Singhal.
