Delhi Gangrape Witness Interview : A Zee News Exclusive

New Delhi: There are a lot of mails and phone calls coming to Zee News and my colleagues in Zee News editorial that we should tell the viewers what happened in those two and a half hours in the bus and why Zee News did not show that part of story when we interviewed the witness? Most of the callers were sure that when we have interviewed the person from the time the victim girl and he were thrown out of the bus, thinking that both were dead, we must have recorded the details which happened in the bus as well. Why are we not showing that part?

In view of so many calls and angry messages, I want to tell the true version to the viewers of Zee News, as well as the 670 million viewers of zee network.

When we started recording the interview with the eye witness, he started telling us the story right from the time he and the victim came out of the mall and their unfortunate journey that began without knowing that their destiny is taking them to disaster. He talked about how they got into the bus and described the ambience in the bus, the dark glasses, the curtains and the darkness in the bus. These details are there in the interview we have telecast.

He then started telling us the minute by minute account of what happened in the bus and how he and the helpless girl were struggling to defend themselves and how he was trying to save her.

I have to tell you all my friends and well-wishers, which is YOU. It is because of you that my team, me and my company exists. If you as a viewer will not give your time to watch our channel we cannot survive. Hence you demanding the account of what happened with the girl and the boy in the bus, is fully justified.

But dear viewers, I have to say that Zee News and the entire Zee Network has always kept the country's dignity supreme. We have been responsible rather than keeping a selfish motive to make money as supreme. If we would have recorded and shown the minute by minute account of what happened in those two and half hour in the bus running on the busy roads of Delhi, our viewership would have exceeded the viewership of the 26/11 attack in Mumbai.

It would have been a bigger television show than the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. You would have been as ashamed as much as we would have been in the recording studio here.



As soon as the witness started telling the minute by minute account, my team decided to switch off the cameras and not take it on record so that we are not tempted to telecast it. If we would have shown the details of the journey in the bus and how this never before crime was committed, we could have been rated the highest reality show amongst the 400 odd TV channels in India.

We would have become the leaders in terms of TV ratings.

But we would have also made the 121 crore Indians feel ashamed of themselves.

We felt that it could have aroused emotions of the people to the highest degree.

We felt that it could have aroused the anger in all of us to dangerous levels.

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