The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Family reels under media frenzy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 05, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Family reels under media frenzy

Afshan Yasmeen and Sudipto Mondal

Intense media glare adds to the distress of the family of Mohammed Haneef

Pleas to leave alone a baby and mother go in vain
‘Haneef’s future is ruined even if he is proven innocent’

BANGALORE: No. 1, Daffodil’s Regency, on Rogers’ Road in Richards Town would never have seen such activity as on Wednesday.

The narrow lane was crammed with vehicles and OB vans and security guards deployed in various apartments in the area were seen guiding yet another clutch of mediapersons to a particular flat.

This is where the family of Mohammed Haneef, one of the Bangalore doctors detained by the Australian authorities in connection with Glasgow terror attack, lives.

With the media — armed with mikes, cameras, notebooks and aggression — beating a path to their door from 7 a.m., the family had no time to cook or have breakfast till noon.

Heedless of all the stress the family was put into (Haneef’s sister Sumaiyya has a one-month-old baby to tend to), camerapersons kept barging in.

Stressed out

According to neighbours, the stressed out family finally asked the security guard to mislead visitors that they were not at home. “Please leave them alone.

They are disturbed and want to be left alone,” a girl, barely into her teens and looking distressed and who lived on the ground floor of the apartment complex, told this newspaper.

In fact, the family was forced to lock itself inside the house for hours together.

Lashing out at the media feeding frenzy, Haneef’s erstwhile landlord’s daughter, Muneera Banu, said: “The media is acting like a hungry wolf and is unnecessarily complicating things.”

Referring to a report in a city tabloid, she said: “They have called him ‘terror doctor’…nothing has been proved yet…it is unfair.”

She added that sections of the media had disproportionately highlighted the fact that he was a “pious Muslim” and that he “did not have many Hindu friends”. She said: “…that does not make him a terrorist … everybody has the right to choose their friends and mix around with their own kind,” adding it was a “conscious effort to frame Haneef.” Haneef’s neighbour, Amir Ali, a student, said: “He has only been detained for questioning … after all that has been written about him even if he is proven innocent, he or his family can never live with pride … his future will be ruined.”

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