THE TELEGRAPH: The BBC has been criticised for refusing to describe the perpetrators of the Bombay (Mumbai) massacre as terrorists.
The corporation has taken a policy decision to always refer to the gunmen in radio, television and online reports as militants despite reports linking the shooting to the Pakistani based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. The group, whose name means Army of the Pious, is on the US watch list of terrorist organisations.
It was established to fight against Indian rule in Kashmir and has past links to both Pakistani intelligence and al-Qaeda. L-e-T was founded in Afghanistan where it has said to have shared training camps with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
But the BBC said that it had decided, after much consideration, to carefully avoid the use of the word terrorist in volatile international situations such as the Bombay shootings, which left 174 dead and hundreds injured, because of the fear the meaning of the word could be lost in translation.
Stephen Pound, the chairman of the Labour Party Friends of India Group, said: "This is the worse sort of mealy mouthed posturing. It is desperation to avoid causing offence which ultimately causes more offence to everyone. The terrorist term is universal. The result is innocent victims slaughtered in restaurants by men brandishing machine guns. They are terrorists and the BBC should call them that." >>> By Andrew Pierce | December 1, 2008
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