On March 7th the BBC News website published a report – including on its ‘Middle East’ and ‘Asia’ pages – under the headline “Indian killed while entering Israel was victim of job scam, family says”.
As was pointed out on social media, that headline inaccurately suggested some kind of Israeli involvement in the man’s death. The report itself – which is credited to BBC Hindi contributor Imran Qureshi – opens as follows:
“The family of an Indian man who was shot dead while illegally crossing into Israel say he was a victim of a job scam.
Thomas Gabriel Perera was killed by Jordanian security forces by the border with Israel on 10 February.”
Four days prior to the appearance of the BBC’s report, the Independent had published an article headlined “Indian man shot dead in Jordan trying to illegally cross Israel border” which noted that the location of the incident was in Jordan.
“Jordanian security forces shot dead an Indian man trying to cross illegally into Israel, a letter sent to his family by the country’s embassy in Amman said. […]
“Thomas and another person were trying to cross the Jordan border at Karkak district illegally” on the night 10 February, The Indian Express quoted the embassy’s letter as stating. “The security forces tried to stop them, but they did not listen to the warning. The guards opened fire on them. One bullet hit Thomas in his head and he died on the spot. Later, his body was sent to a local hospital,” the report said.”
In other words, the man was not killed “while entering Israel” as claimed in the BBC’s headline but rather while in Jordan and on his way to try to cross the border illegally. Nevertheless, it took the BBC News website some twenty hours to amend that misleading headline, apparently following complaints.
Another amendment made to the report concerns a description of the incident. The original version told readers that: [emphasis added]
“Perera, 47, had been accompanied by his brother-in-law Edison Charlas, who was injured in the shootout. Mr Charlas was treated in hospital and spent a fortnight in prison before he was repatriated to India.”
The term “shootout” obviously implies that both the Jordanian security forces and the Indian nationals were using firearms. The amended version of the report reads as follows:
“Perera, 47, had been accompanied by his brother-in-law Edison Charlas, who was injured in the incident. Mr Charlas was treated in hospital and spent a fortnight in prison before he was repatriated to India.”
It would of course not be unreasonable for licence fee payers to expect their national broadcaster to exhibit a better command of the English language.
