Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh experienced a tragedy recently after kids admitted in a Baba Raghav Das Medical College allegedly died after oxygen supply was disrupted due to non payment of dues to the contractor. The larger issue which came to notice was that most of the kids were believed to be suffering from encephalitis which has caused the deaths of 25,000 children in Gorakhpur itself from 1978.
While everyone was mourning the deaths of the kids and wondering as to how the endemic of encephalitis can be controlled or those behind the negligence can be punished, some journalists decided to come out and tweet outright insensitive stuff, bereft of any respect for the dead:
So, does anybody have any idea how many of the #Gorakhpur corpses will go to shamshan and how many to kabaristan?
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) August 12, 2017
Senior journalist Shekhar Gupta of the ‘coup fame’, tried to bring in the religion of the poor kids with his tweet and was slammed by many:
This man yet again proves that there’s a limit to how high you can go, but depth of your lowness can be infinite https://t.co/9T1DpKzSoA
— Ra_Bies (@Ra_Bies) August 12, 2017
sir, don’t know where they will go.. but with this tweet the level of your journalism has gone so down..! What’s wrong with you? #Gorakhpur https://t.co/xc1VZR0vc4
— Paresh Rawal Fan (@Babu_Bhaiyaa) August 12, 2017
He used to be Lutyens most respected Journalist but then Modi came and stopped throwing bones to his gang… Reaction ? pic.twitter.com/KDlK5njlQz
— Mihir Jha (@MihirkJha) August 12, 2017
Having a field day today?? Even little, motionless, dead bodies of innocent children fail to arouse any human emotions in you?? https://t.co/0haLgmwS7p
— Apeksha Lehru (@Suparna228) August 12, 2017
Did you send your conscience to shamshan or kabaristan? Or did you feed it to the vultures? https://t.co/awI4meDsKL
— Shuchi Singh Kalra (@shuchikalra) August 13, 2017
Gupta wasn’t the only one who decided to exploit the tragedy. Marathi journalist Nikhil Wagle who recently had falsely cried victim, too decided to plug in his agenda:
So Gorakhpur kids needed oxygen n medicines,not Vande Mataram!
— nikhil wagle (@waglenikhil) August 11, 2017
These people never disappoint. For them, every situation (as heartbreaking as they may be) is a political scoring opportunity. Vultures! https://t.co/Lpj1XSXQ9K
— Keh Ke Peheno (@coolfunnytshirt) August 11, 2017
There is a saying in Marathi for this – to eat butter off a corpse’s skull! To mock children’s death to score a point is beyond ugly. https://t.co/oW4z8THGAH
— Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya) August 12, 2017
And you need a mental asylum https://t.co/M63TykJJ8W
— Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) August 11, 2017
What is more surprising is the fact that these journalists haven’t yet deleted their tweet and expressed an explicit apology for the same. They though were given tough competition by members of the Congress party for belittling the issue:
Imaginge the outrage & abuses if instead of 30 children ..30 cows would have died . I’m presuming these were poor kids..
#Gorakhpur— Tehseen Poonawalla (@tehseenp) August 11, 2017
Surgical garb for a press conference? Be sure these idiots care more about mopping up party mileage than putting the spotlight on a tragedy. pic.twitter.com/RLPfe4IpcP
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) August 12, 2017