REALITY BITES RAKHI, SHOW TURNS FATAL
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
By Manjari Singh
The Pioneer
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Indraprasth aka New Delhi - Rakhi Sawant, the host of the highly
insensitive and uncivil reality show Rakhi Ka Insaaf, aired on
Imagine TV, was on Friday booked for abetment to suicide after the
untimely death of one of the participants whom she repeatedly called
"namard" and "napunsak" in the episode aired on October 23.
"He stopped eating and kept crying all the time. He was repeatedly
called napunsak and namard (impotent) by Rakhi on the show and
everybody made fun of him in Jhansi," Laxman Ahirwar uncle Balbir
said on phone from Jhansi. The 25-year-old was admitted to the Jhansi
Medical College on November 9 in a state of extreme weakness and
emotional stress and he breathed his last the following day.
Ahirwar's is a case in point of how not to allow such irresponsible
and highly unsettling reality shows on Indian television. Imagine
TV's CEO Samir Nair, who has been the sole spokesperson in promoting
this controversial show, and Rakhi Sawant refused to take calls on
Friday. Repeated calls to them went unanswered even though both have
stressed on earlier occasions that TRPs are the highest for Rakhi Ka
Insaaf and "that's what the public wants".
But for Ahirwar, who stopped eating and went into severe depression
after being accosted publicly by motormouth Rakhi, "it was the worst
nightmare of his life that he appeared on the show", Balbir added.
When Ahirwar accepted the offer, little did he know that utter
humiliation was in store for him and, far from the promise of Rakhi
resolving the tangled knots of his recent marriage, he would become a
laughing stock.
Ahirwar's family has lodged an FIR against Rakhi Sawant and local
journalists Ronak Ali, Anju, Sandhya and Satish Mishra for
encouraging Ahirwar to participate in the show. "These people got us
into the show, saying it was similar to Kiran Bedi's Aap Ki Kachehri.
They also told us that Rakhi will deliver justice in a similar
fashion," Balbir added.
In an earlier application, addressed to the Jhansi SSP, Ahirwar's
mother Savitri Devi has stated: "My son said he had lost interest in
life after the show was aired unedited. He kept saying that Rakhi
Sawant had finished his life and would plead with us to let him die."
Ahirwar was married to Anita on February 19 but she left for her
parents' house only four days after the wedding. "She took away all
the jewellery we had given her," Balbir said.
He claimed that Anita had an affair with another man "because of
which Ahirwar never wanted her back. He only wanted her to return his
family's jewellery. That's the reason he agreed to appear on the
show."
Jhansi SSP BK Dohra confirmed the registration of the FIR. "The case
has been filed against Rakhi Sawant and some local journalists for
abetting suicide under IPC Sections 306(B), 120(B) and 364. Since the
body has been cremated, we cannot conduct a post-mortem examination
to ascertain the exact cause of death," he said.
Ahirwar, his parents and his uncle started for Mumbai on September
13. "We were given free air tickets from Delhi to Mumbai. Anita and
her parents had been called two days before the shoot. We also came
to know that Anita was offered Rs 50,000 by the channel," Balbir
said. Ahirwar and his parents were continuously abused and humiliated
by Rakhi and her two bodyguards, he alleged.
However, journalist Raunak Ali, who referred Ahirwar to the show,
claimed it was Ahirwar who had approached him. "He came to me and
said he wanted to be on the show for fame and money. He was also
offered money, I don't know how much," said the scribe.
Whatever the truth, Ahirwar's unfortunate death brings into sharp
focus the growing wantonness of reality shows and the channels' total
lack of social responsibility in determining programming. As Kiran
Bedi, who hosted Aap ki Kachehri on Star Plus, said pertinently: "The
episode was not telecast live. It should have been edited. Why did
they let it go like that? It's uncouth and uncivil. Rakhi shouldn't
have said those words. They could have been deleted."
But then, what would have happened to the TRPs? So what if a PIL has
been filed against the objectionable way in which Rakhi conducts
herself on the show? While promoting the show, she said: "I have been
asked to behave like that, so you should ask the channel why the show
is so loud."
http://dailypioneer.com/296197/Reality-bites-Rakhi-show-turns-fatal.html
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Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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