In a podcast released on 10th November, featuring actor Vikrant Massey, journalist Shubhankar Mishra spoke about how the mainstream media spins narratives around an incident which influences perception about the incident or people involved. Mishra revealed that back in 2019, the television news channel where he worked as a reporter then had asked him to visit the house of one of the victims of the Surat coaching fire accident which claimed 22 lives and get a bite from them blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the incident.
The fire accident at the coaching centre in a commercial complex in Surat’s Jakatnaka area transpired on 24th May 2019. The fire broke due to a short circuit in the air conditioning system. The building did not have a fire safety certificate. Escape routes were blocked trapping the students.
“I was in Gujarat when an incident happened in Surat wherein students were falling from a building to save themselves from fire. Several disturbing videos of girls jumping from the building had emerged back then. It was a tragic incident and we did reporting from there for two days. The coaching centre was sealed, the accused were arrested and the matter came to a closure. Two days after, there was a big leader’s show in Ahmedabad, I asked my editor if I should go to Ahmedabad since the culprits in this case had been arrested, and coaching had been sealed what shall I do. But he (the editor), said no! when the whole world will telecast the rally, you go to the houses of [Surat coaching fire] victims. Grab a child and get a bite from him saying “Modi uncle what did you do?” Mishra said.
He further delved into what could have been the outcome of getting such a statement from the victims and how making the victims say “What did you do Modi uncle, get me my sister back” would have defined the public perception of the incident and Prime Minister Modi.
Notably, while Shubhankar Mishra did not explicitly name which news channel or the editor he was talking about, Mishra’s LinkedIn profile and old videos of coverage of the Surat coaching fire incident confirm that he was working at TV9 Bharatvarsh. Although Mishra did not name the editor who asked him to get a statement against PM Modi, from the coaching fire tragedy victims, netizens are speculating that it may have been Vinod Kapri or Ajit Anjum who worked at TV9 Bharatvarsh in 2019 and are rabid Modi haters.
