India was shocked with the news of brutal rape and murder of a young doctor at a government hospital in Kolkata. The “information” of the incident that has been flowing through social media platforms made the public even more furious. Disturbing images alleged to be taken from the crime scene has been circulating through various social media accounts.

As people continued to share the chilling details of the brutal incident, misinformation crawled in. Journalist Tamal Saha penned down his take on publicising those images. He posed the relevant question of, “Did you even think once, that those pictures might also reach to her parents at some point?”.

Saha, a Kolkata-based journalist, said the Kolkata police did not share any single image of the issue, and the Bengal journalists did not share any “exclusives” on the matter, since they could not find any, to which he thanked Kolkata police.

He said, “I can bet no one & I REPEAT NOT A SINGLE JOURNALIST has the PM report. I have said this on air and to other senior Journalists as well. Minus family and lawyers, probably no one has it. Several Delhi based journalists have claimed to have accessed the details of the report. Trust them if you want. But that as journalism doesn’t inspire me. If they really had access then 150 mg (milligram) wouldn’t have become 150gm (gram)”.

Also Read: Also Read |Misinformation About Kolkata Doctor Rape Case On Social Media

Saha called the doctor a ‘Fighter’. Referring to picture that has been circulating, and which was assumed to be taken at the crime scene, he said the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital doctor already had a face, and people knew her. He said the image that has been circulating through social media “were taken even before police reached the spot. I saw some journalists too sharing them. They all lost my respect”.

Saha called out social media influencers for jumping on the situation and spreading “stories far far far away from truth” for the sake of getting “millions of views”.

He shared a moment when he went to meet the doctor’s family members. “I met with them few days back and one of their family members told me “you all are vultures, animals, surviving on rotis/ chapatis marinated in the blood of our daughter and her suffering”… They were angry as how misinformation on Fighter had become information for media. I am yet to come to terms with that slap”.

 

Just wanna ask- how exactly, has making those pictures public helped you help the investigation? Did you even think once, that those pictures might also reach to her parents at some point?

I must admit #Kolkata Police didn’t share a single thing. Show me one thing that any…

— Tamal Saha (@Tamal0401) August 17, 2024

Kolkata police denied several widely circulated theories, including the “150gm semen” theory. Reportedly, the source of such information was the petition filed by the doctor’s family in the Calcutta High Court. Kolkata Police chief Vineet Goya, however, denied this.

Also Read | Why Are Doctors Across India Protesting?

“Someone said 150 gm semen is found. I don’t know from where they have found this kind of Information. And it is circulating in media in all kinds of forms. People are tempted to believe it and they are trying to create confusion among the people”, he said, as quoted by NDTV.

He also denied that the police received named of the doctor’s colleagues, who were suspected to be part of the crime. Some social media posts have named some of the colleagues of the doctor as suspects. While sources say the parents have shared a list of names of the suspects with the CBI, no agency has named anyone on record, except the arrested civic volunteer, said the report.