Ishrat kahan?

When the news broke, everyone dismissed it as "rabid Hinduism". A conspiracy, an attempt to taint Muslims and Islam in general. Machinations of the state. Vested interests. Another debate between the fundamentalists and the secularists.

Now, the same parties that featured the earlier encounter are not running this side of the story. NDTV didn't even feature it on their website. Nor the TOI in it's print edition(Login required). But then again, the TOI is just so much paper and not so much serious journalism.

I got home yesterday just in time to catch Sreenivasan Jain do a hurried piece on NDTV. No guests. Just a telephone call with ACP Vanjara in Gujarat. And this morning, no reactions from anyone. Not the RJD, not the SP. Not the Maharashtra Police. Not even the "prominent social activists" who filed the PIL.

Of course, we had reactions from Ishrat's brother and the family lawyer:

In Mumbai, Ishrat’s 17-year-old brother, Anwar Sheikh, said he was not aware (of) such a website.
"Anything can be posted on a website," he said. "This could be the work of vested interests to malign my sister."
Sheikh’s view was echoed by Advocate Shakeb Khan, who has been representing Ishrat's family since the encounter.
"The information on it (website) seemed baseless," he added.

Baseless based on what? Oh sure, it's entirely possible that someone has hacked the site.....and I can't read Urdu anyways so maybe I shouldn't be talking.