Was Dhananjoy Chatterjee really guilty? Media trial witnessed during execution

Hey guys, so I've been out for a very long time and now I am, I'm back. So here is my video for you. Okay, so this is my podcast which I am recording. As you can see, I have a mic already over here. So this is my 3rd podcast. Which is available on Spotify and Anchor. As it's in the name of the podcast is Frontline and Child. So this is welcome to my third podcast today. I'll give you the link right below so you can watch, you can listen to it also as well. This is an audio as well as a video podcast simultaneously made for all my YouTube Viewers, blog friends, followers, and subscribers who took so long and who so look out for my videos. Just for them to let me announce that ever since winter has dawned on Canada, so and the days are cold, dreary, sometimes sunny with lovely snow though. Stepping out to show you the full glory of snowfall. Has become a task for me. So while doing other things like running my Bengali kitchen cloud, which you all know, it's called The Hangla, and it's one of the first Bengali kitchen, fully Bengali, authentic Bengali kitchen to be available in Canada. And so doing that, writing my 7th book, which is another novel which I'm coming up with, and running household chores, I slice out some time to do a weekly broadcast— podcast, since I feel that the future generations may be spending more time with podcasts. In a way, podcasts are healthier than, uh, videos and blogs because it causes lesser strain to their eyes. You may just want to listen to it while driving or doing a treadmill or jogging or walking. Okay, so I'm trying to focus on that obliterated obliterated part of my life when I was a hard-nosed reporter doing sting operations, running after deadlines, shooting off the last run page. It's called the run page. It was called the run page, the page that went after all editions were done. So at 1 AM or 2 AM, at the same time bringing up my toddler son. And this was my first few years as a journalist and the best time of my career. For your information, okay, this actually was not the first few years of my journalism, uh, that happened even before I was married. So I was 21, 22, 23, 24— those are the ages, those are the times when I was a hard-nosed journalist running after stories and reporting from the, from the base. So for your information, my toddler son is now 25. He is a writer and a journalist in his own rights. His name is Anish Chatterjee, so you will find him on Google also. And it is at his insistence that I started the podcast. He even brought me a real microphone, as you can see, and is guiding me how I should mince my words, literally, because in video you can see the lips reading, so you can understand what I'm trying to say. But in a podcast you don't get the chance. So I have to be very careful and very, very, uh, I'm learning how to pronounce my words even, even better with each, each passing podcast. So just bear with me while I am learning and I'm, I'm trying to give you the best. Sorry. So coming to my story, the last time I spoke about how I was asked to cover a hanging An execution in India live. That was my second podcast, and you will find the link right below the video. The year was 2004, and I was given the plump assignment to cover the execution of convict Dhanunjay Chatterjee. Chatterjee was hanged on his birthday on August 14, 2004, at Alipur Central Jail in Calcutta. Kolkata, India at 4:30 a.m. He was it was on his birthday for was August 14th and 4:30 a.m. was technically August 15th. But in Bengali Bengali calendar, it is not unless the sun until the sunrise we do not consider to be another day. So it was technically still on his birthday that he was hanged on his birthday. So he was a security guard who was executed. You can find him on Google. He was a security guard who was executed for the murder. Of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh on March 5th, 1990, at her apartment residence in Bhuvanipur, Kolkata, India. And I was asked to cover that hanging live. So please listen to that hair-raising story at the link given below. And for all those who are listening to my podcast for the first time, you can just go on Frontline and Chai and listen to that podcast. My second episode, it's not— I haven't done too many episodes as yet. But I plan to do some definitely with your inspiration and your comments. So once you start commenting and writing back to me, I will feel more inspired to do more podcasts and share with you a lot more such stories. Not only with just myself, not only about myself, but with— I'm planning to interview friends who had even, even wilder experiences than I have had. So, um, I'm hoping to sit down with them in a proper— with a proper talk show where they will share their bone-chilling experiences with you. I don't know whether Dhanunjaya Chatterjee was guilty or not. In my opinion, he was framed, okay? And his family used vehemently for the media— it was used vehemently for the media war. And you can watch that movie, Dhanunjaya. I think this is a movie on that, so you can see that movie and form your own opinion. I don't want to bring up a kind of buried story which has long gone and person is not going to come out alive, but I want to talk about the disgusting media war that happened that time. So in this episode, I will tell you— last, in the last episode, I told you how I was asked to cover the hanging and how on the only newspaper I was working with covered hanging live. Like, they, they did not— I was finally not permitted to go inside, but the actual hanging was covered live. So I have spoken about it in my past episode, which is called When I Was Asked to Cover Hanging Live. So you can take a look at that episode, you can hear that episode. So in this episode, I will tell you how the front— how I was a front runner to witness this media war exploiting Dhananjay's family, the helplessness, vulnerability of his family by the media, who were then battling to get the maximum circulation. Remember, in those days there was just print media, there was nothing called TRP. The words like TRP, footfall, traffic, SEO, Google SEO— these terms did not exist. Even Google did not exist In that those days, so they were getting the maximum circulation and the maximum ad revenue was given to that newspaper which covered Sanjay Chatterjee's execution live and his and the plight of his family. Most importantly, those who were being able to cover the plight of his family. Just talking of it disgusts me, but it happened. It is still happening. Okay, so for TRP today is happening for TRP, for ratings, for traffic on the website. Even today, the helpless are being exploited. But when you see it happening in front of your eyes, you do. You are disturbed. Okay, this till this part I've been able to write down. The rest of it is so volatile, so fresh in my memory that I'm going to talk about it. Maybe I'll come out with a lot of ah's and er's and um's. So you just remember this. I'm just talking from my head. I haven't written down anywhere, so I'm just talking from my memory, from my impression. So I'm also I'm talking it on the camera, on camera live as well as recording it on the podcast simultaneously. So okay, that's big stress on me, by the way. So as and when it happened over a period of 2 to 3 months, when Dhanunjay was pronounced guilty, and then Supreme Court— the first High Court passed his order of execution by hanging, then Supreme Court passed the order, and then we were— there was a huge media war going on among all the newspapers in that time, those times. The media was covering their families, the plight of the families. Dhananjay's family was a Brahmin, and his father was worshipping, was a priest in a recent, in a nearby Kali Mandir. So he was completely devastated by the whole thing, and he was at, in his, in the temple, he was just lying in front of Maa Kali the whole day. He wasn't eating anything, he wasn't sleeping, and he was barely being able to even dress himself. Like, he was in that kind of a mental state. His mother was in total, total shattered. They were— the family was totally shattered as they were waiting for the president to cancel his execution. So though that is the time when I kept— we kept getting pictures of his families, you know, the reporters went and covered, and the photographers were running after their families like as if they were celebrities. Whenever the father went out, Wherever the father went, wherever the mother went, photographers were hounding them, and they were pleading to be left alone. They were pleading to, you know, to get out from there. These days I see such coverage all the time, happening all the time. I think people have accepted that, you know, crying over a dead body, real, real life, real life mourning Real life misery is is something which which we all enjoy in a way. So we want enjoy watching. So these days it has become a norm. Nobody you just open the internet and you find several such stories. But in those days there was not much of an internet, not much of a not much of a TV. There were some TV channels but not this much, this many. So when media went out to cover all this, all these pictures, and the pictures were being getting splashed on page 1, it was a painful thing to watch that happening. And the rush among journalists to be able to cover that, to take out the worst possible picture that shows the worst plight in a family, that itself so disturbing. Even then it was disturbing to me. I wasn't in that particular department, but I was watching it all around me because I was in charge of the international page. But I was watching it all around me. So I remember one picture. I don't know whether you'll find it now on internet. You might want to find it and show it to me if you find it. Please upload the picture on the comment section if you can. Or send it to my email. So one picture was of Dhananjay's father coming, walking out of the mandir. He was on the temple and he was getting going back to his home. And he was wearing a shirt just covering till his till his waist, and the lungi that he was wearing beneath that had opened. For some reason, it had fallen off, and he was not aware of it. He was in such a mental state, he was walking without it. The lungi was lying somewhere just behind him, and he was walking without the lungi. And photographers caught that in the camera. They took that picture, and that picture was lying on the desk. I still, when I think of it, I mean, you know, something in me just... Dips. It dies. I've seen the death of journalism so, so, from so near. So when I told my colleague in that desk, I said, are you going to take that picture? She said, of course, it's going to go on the first page. I said, okay. So that these things still bother me so much that I wanted to make this podcast now. And this is something I do not know whether it will bother you in the, in the in future or not. So my podcast has started suddenly, you know, started uploading. Uh, okay, so at least I've done some part of it. It's suddenly— there's a technical error and it's processing, showing it's processing, and suddenly it was uploaded. Anyway, thank goodness it's uploaded. Now we can talk on the video as well. So, um, upload failed. I am, I'm very, very bad at this. Retry uploading. Oh my God, don't tell me it's failed. So this is the story, uh, which I wanted to share. I'm going to share more stories on, uh, my podcast. So please subscribe to my podcast. Please go on Frontline and Chai. It is available on Spotify and subscribe to it and let me know How I am doing? Okay. Thank you for watching, and thank you for listening.