On July 19, a female Police Officer was crushed to death when she tried to stop a vehicle carrying animals illegally. As per reports, the Tupudana Police Station had got a tip about the vehicle smuggling cattle. When sub-inspector Sandhya Topno attempted to stop the vehicle, the driver mowed her down to death. The vehicle has been seized, and the Police have apprehended the driver. The investigation is underway.
However, while reporting the incident, only a handful of media houses mentioned the content of the vehicle that was being smuggled. Here is how different media houses reported the matter.
A Times Now report on the case did not mention that cattle were being smuggled in the vehicle. In the video, for over four minutes, the anchors and the reporter explaining the case only mentioned “illegal items”. It was only towards the end of the report that one of the anchors asked what the items that vehicle was carrying were, and the reporter opened up about cattle. In the text below the video, there was no mention of the cattle smuggling.
Hindi news outlet Hindustan entirely skipped the details about the cow smuggler mowing down the police officer. The media house detailed what had happened, but there was no mention of cows being smuggled by the vehicle.
Hindustan Times also skipped the details about the cow smuggler and only mentioned that the female officer was mowed down by the vehicle during checking.
DNA called it a routine checking and mentioned the tip about cattle smuggling only while quoting ANI.
In the report of the incident, Mirror Now did not mention anywhere that cattle were being smuggled by the vehicle that ran over the Police Officer.
India TV also quoted ANI to report cattle smuggling but restrained from using it elsewhere, including in the title of the report.
In its report, Aaj Tak did mention that there was a tip-off about a vehicle smuggling cattle. However, the media house skipped mentioning that the vehicle that ran over the officer was, in fact carrying cattle.
The same style of reporting was done by Punjab Kesari, where they did mention cattle smuggling but only towards the end and not in the title or beginning part of the report.
In a report, Republic TV did not mention cow smuggling in the text, although the video that was used in the report talked about cattle smuggling.
Amar Ujala and Free Press Journal have mentioned cattle smugglers prominently in their respective reports.
The murder of female sub-inspector
According to the reports, officer Sandhya was chasing the vehicle that was carrying the animals illegally. She got a tip against the vehicle and ran after the vehicle to nab the accused. However, the unidentified accused drove the vehicle in the opposite direction to crush the officer on the spot.
Sub-Inspector Sandhya Topno was then immediately shifted to the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences hospital, where the doctors declared her dead. SSP Ranchi informed about the incident on July 20 and added that the Ranchi Police had nabbed the accused and also had seized the vehicle.