When Encounter Erases State Boundaries!

The killing of four youths, accused in the last week’s rape and murder of 26-year old veterinarian Disha on the outskirts of Hyderabad, in a dreaded encounter with the Cyberabad police is the biggest story of the day for the entire nation.

Almost all the national and regional dailies across the country made it as a banner story. And for the all the major dailies in Andhra Pradesh, too, it was the banner story though it happened in the neighbouring Telangana.

At least for a day, the boundaries between the two Telugu states disappeared in reacting to the encounter killings.

The women and girl students in every part of Andhra Pradesh responded as overwhelmingly as their counterparts in Telangana did on the encounter killings of the four accused. 

There were celebrations in universities, colleges and streets by womenfolk in Andhra Pradesh over the “instance justice with the bullet” delivered by the Cyberabad police to the accused.

The channels in Andhra, too, concentrated only on this particular issue, taking reactions from the people and highlighting the news from the spot.

The three major Telugu dailies – Eenadu, Andhra Jyothy and Sakshi carried it as a banner story but with different headlines.

Eenadu’s headline said: “Bullet delivers judgement,” Andhra Jyothy carried the story with the headline: “End at the same place,” and Sakshi simply described it as: “Encounter.”

Coming to the other news, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy sought to project Jagan’s visit to New Delhi in a negative shade.

While Eenadu published a story stating Jagan abruptly ended his Delhi visit, Andhra Jyothy report said: “Jagan has come and gone.” Sakshi also carried a small piece on the sudden ending of Jagan’s Delhi tour, attributing it to the death of his personal assistant.

The inauguration of Telugu Desam Party’s central office at Mangalagiri was expectedly a second lead story of Eenadu, but was carried as a pointer in Andhra Jyothy. Sakshi ignored it at least on the front page.

Sakshi carried an interesting story on how the state government was seriously studying implementation of English medium in government schools and examining various models adopted in various states in the country, besides taking suggestions on requirements in Singapore, the US and the UK.

The only other story that is missing in other papers but visible in Sakshi is the way India won the first T-20 cricket match with West India at Uppal stadium on Friday night. Definitely, it will attract the attention of the readers!

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