#Sheena Bora Murder – Let us all (including journalists) sit back and lap it all : Shantonu Sen

MURDER MOST HORRIBLE

Anyone who has looked at the news recently must have realized that human beings seem to have inordinate propensity to kill their own. Every type of killing , I have always assumed, has been defined. But there was no occasion to check up. The murder of Sheena had me checking my belief and found that I was right. There are as many as 85 kinds of all types of killing , both animate and inanimate that have been given names. To take up only the killing of human species we have words like aborticide- killing of the fetus, amicide- killing a friend, femicide-killing of a woman, felicide- killing ones child, siblicide- killing ones brother or sister, sororicide- killing ones sister , episcopicide- killing bishops , hereticide- kiliing heretics, vaticide- killing of prophets, senicide-killing old men and women, tyrannicide- killing of a tyrant and viricides- killing men to name the first that are rarely heard . Next we have the descriptions of murders which are better known. These are homicide- plain murder, infanticide-killing infants, suicide- killing one self, patricide- killing ones father, matricide- killing own mother and fratricide-killing ones brother. Finally, we have killings which only occur ,but rarely. They are mariticide= killing ones husband, neonaticide- killing a new born child, parenticide-killing ones parents, parricide-killing ones close relatives, prolicide- killing off-springs, regicide- killing monarch and uxoricide- killing wife.

Since the last few days the entire field of communication newspapers, television channels, journals, magazines, portals and ,of course, all the tabloids have been gripped by a killing which ,allegedly, occurred three years ago but has surfaced recently. The Sheena Bora or Sheena Das killing. It has aroused enormous interest. Even an accidental death where two honchos who are, nearly close, to being called the king and queen of the media world of India are involved, would have been sufficient reason for the attention that it is receiving . But this is allegedly, murder of either a sister or off her own child by Indirani Bora nee Das nee Khanna nee Mukherjea. This is a case which has, so far, defied identity. Is it a siblicide- killing a brother or sister or sororicide- killing sister or felicide – killing progeny or prolicide – killing an off spring?

Many ,including a top editor, are bemused. The so called voyeuristic streak has them disgusted. Some lawyers have quoted the Law Commission of India which has sought a complete ban on any reporting after the accused are arrested. All three accused have been in custody for some time now. On the other hand a number of panelist on sundry channels have heaped praise on the “investigative” skills of reporters. A couple of them went as far as to say that such reports will aid the police in its investigation. Be that as it may there is no doubt that both viewers of TV channels and newspaper readers are lapping all of what is in the air and print. The same enthusiasm was all round when Arushi murder was being reported and, later,when Sununda Pushkar’s death was investigated. This interest is not of recent origin. Remember ,the case of the noted eye surgeon whose wife was murdered in Delhi in the early sixties or the murder by a naval officer in then Bombay of a businessman who was trifling with his wife’s affections, in the early fifties. They received so much cover. Call this interest by any name. Since it cannot be eradicated it must be endured. Let us all sit back and lap it all.