The 'EQ' story: entirely questionable!

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After covering Science and Technology for five years, I recently moved to CNN-IBN's show Citizen Journalist. It is a show about citizens actively taking up causes with the help of the channel. It is a show for fighters not gripers. What interests me the most about this work is that it helps me meet interesting people and help them, some that I will never forget.

The other day there was a story in the papers. A 55-year-old disabled lady in Delhi was manhandled by MCD workers when they came to destroy the ramp outside her house in Delhi locality, Vikas Puri to construct new sewage drains. She used to use this ramp to maneuver her wheelchair in and out of the house. Apparently she had a response from the Chief Minister's office asking the MCD to maintain status quo on the ramp. And the demolition in the colony had started in January. So, fearing that her ramp of 30 years will be destroyed, she wrote to the MCD commissioner and the CM requesting them for status quo.

Ignoring the status quo, on 25th April the MCD not only destroyed the ramp but also manhandled the lady. We had to take a call and provide any kind of help we could. In journalistic terms it was what we call a "high EQ (Emotional Quotient)" story.

As I was leaving home for office I got a call from the shows producer asking me to come soon, write a script and go shoot the story. The story was in the papers with all the details. So our usual research, recce and all were not required. I called up the newspaper reporter who did the story and she gave me the number of the disabled lady who told me she had all the documents.

I quickly wrote the shoot script, got it approved and left for the shoot. When I reached, there were already few reporters from other news channels present there. A popular Hindi channel was doing a live with her. The lady received us graciously and started giving us all the details. We followed our regular our regular course of action and started shooting.

She had immense patience, she told her story over and over to each member of our crew individually. She had this habit of using the word "madam" in every sentence, guess it comes with working in a government bank. Her father was bedridden and her mother was very old. The ramp outside their house was indeed destroyed. We could not help but feel for her.

The cameraman started shooting and then I asked her for the documents. She showed me all the documents and the copies of the letters she wrote to the agencies. I could not find the status quo document. I asked for it so she showed me a document from the CM's office which said "forwarding her request to the concerned department for necessary action". But this was not the document that the papers and TV channels had their story based on. This was no status quo. What was the evidence that MCD had no right to demolish the ramp outside? I asked her where is the status quo document to which she replied, "Madam, don't get into legality." And then it got clear in my mind, that there was no truth in the story what she had told me.

There was something missing, there were some loopholes. Somehow, it did not seem right. I had many questions in my mind, like, why did not any of her neighbours came for her help? There was an intern in the shooting crew and I told her to go check with the neighbours quietly. She returned and told me that the rain water drainage was a big issue in the colony so residents had requested MCD to reconstruct drains and in the process they had to destroy the old ones. For demolition MCD had to get a bulldozer to graze her ramp and while she was trying to come in front of the bulldozer they hand to hold her back, which she claimed was "manhandling". Neighbors said that the MCD people even offered to reconstruct her ramp but she stood there with her walking stick and stopped them from doing so.

Although the shoot was still going on, I was increasingly getting doubtful that there was a story at all. For courtesy sake I did not want to stop the shoot and leave. While talking to her she told me she had ambitious plans to become the president of the disabled society. That is when it all made sense. She had political ambitions and she thought this to be the ideal situation. Write letter to the government, cry foul and grab all the media attention. I was appalled. What surprised me even more was that the newspapers which carried her story without looking at the documents. News channels did a live - when there was no story at all.

It was hard for me to get any sleep that night. She used her disability to get media on her side; it was a very disturbing thought. Newspapers did the story without due diligence and TV channels followed suit and for once the government actually was not at fault.