Nagpur: In every corner of Nagpur people must have seen this banner asking information about missing girl from London named Gauri Bhonsle,sure every one who have seen this banners must be thinking why a missing banner of a Girl lost in London is been pasted in Nagpur, is she from Nagpur and many more queries un-answered.
It was ABP News who had carried what appear to be news items (available on YouTube) about the allegedly missing girl. It even has one London police officer saying that Gauri has gone to India.
ABP News is the new name of Star News, given in April 2012 after Ananda Bazar Patrika and Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV parted ways. So, they are currently not linked. ABP News has carried what appear to be news items (available on YouTube) about the allegedly missing girl. It even has one London police officer saying that Gauri has gone to India. On probing the mystery of the fictitious report, it now appears that an abducted girl was indeed rescued in Saharanpur but how her identity got mixed up with Gauri Bhonsle, the fictional story of an NRI girl going missing, is still not clear.
SSP Mishra speaking to media said the girl, who was recovered from Tanheri Bijurg village in Deoband, was not Gauri but she had lied about her identity. “The girl, who belongs to Malda, went to Shimla with her boyfriend and stayed there for about 10 days. She then returned to Delhi to go back to Malda. On her way to the station she was given spiked food by taxi driver Manoj Tyagi. She was then ‘sold’ to Yogesh and Raju in Dehradun. From there the girl was taken to the village in Deoband.” Mishra said the abducted girl managed to contact her boyfriend. “The boyfriend then told her that she should tell the villagers that she is Gauri Bhonsle, an NRI from Britain and she has been kidnapped,” said Mishra. The girl then narrated the story to the villagers who informed the village pradhan who informed the SDM Deoband. The police then rescued the girl from the village.
How were all these papers been taken for a ride when the ‘missing’ ad of Gauri said ABP News and Star Plus would search for her, indicating that it was a promo? And who was responsible for taking them for a ride – the Saharanpur police, who accepted a cock-and-bull story and rushed to the media before checking the facts? Obviously, these newspapers, too, didn’t check facts. Still, some of them didn’t hesitate to give details of posters about the missing NRI girl in London and Mumbai. In fact, The Indian Express even carried a photograph of ‘Gauri Bhonsle’ from a social network community page, a photograph which happens to be that of the actor playing the role in the forthcoming serial.
Finally, what’s the role of Star TV? Was its “disruptive” campaign designed to mislead newspapers and earn some publicity for its upcoming show? Star India CEO Uday Shankar denied this. “This incident has nothing to do with us. It is not part of our marketing strategy,” he said.
Shankar said, “What was run on ABP News was part of the advertising segment and not the news, and has been paid for by Star. The format might imitate a news format, again as part of a marketing stunt.” In response to a question on whether he thought it was ethical to mislead viewers by making the clip seem like genuine news, the Star India CEO said, “There is nothing unethical about it. One, we have always run disclaimers both in print and on TV. Two, we are only running an item saying somebody is missing. The person is an imaginary individual, so it does not in any way affect either any other person or group adversely.”
News based on Information as appeared on various media
