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After a fact- finding team of the Broadcast Editor’s Association was sent to probe the August 13 incident where a 23 year old man was allegedly instigated to immolate himself, the BEA released its report stating that the members of BEA will not air self immolation incidents by their news channels. It said that the filming of the immolation of the youth was “unethical” however, the allegation that the youth was instigated by the media persons was ruled out due to absence of substantial evidence.

Kalpesh Mistry, 29 burnt himself alive at the Unjha district of Gujarat. Thereby, a tea vendor filed an FIR alleging that two media persons of two TV news channels instigated the youth to take the extreme step.

Dhimant Purohit,  Aaj Tak Gujarat Bureau chief, who headed the team, told reporters that the first time Kalpesh called up one of the reporters was only one-and-a-half hours before the incident and in his dying declaration did not name the journalists but only said he took the extreme step due to a family feud and a police complaint regarding it.

BEA president Shazi Zaman also clarified that the news report in some newspapers citing that the incidents were incited for “higher TRPs” was “baseless”.  He stated further that news clippings of self immolation will not be aired in future.

The Association will issue guidelines to the media persons in this regard and also blamed the police for maligning the media by alleging that the media instigated the incident. It would write to the Union Information & Broadcasting Minister and the Chief Minister of Gujarat on this issue.

The report also had a recommendations that field reporters should inform their headquarters before coverage of any such happening, workshops should be held regularly to make journalists more aware about their role and measures should be taken to sensitise media as a whole that human life is more important that any of the stories.