“Why are you running away like a coward?”, Republic TV reporters ask Shashi Tharoor

Yesterday, at the end of Shashi Tharoor’s press conference in which he answered questions about the newly-formed All India Professionals’ Congress, four Republic TV correspondents chased Shashi Tharoor from the venue of the press conference to his car. The entire time, they repeatedly questioned him as to why he wouldn’t answer Republic TV’s questions about his late wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death. While the full video of the press conference can be seen on Republic TV’s YouTube Channel, a 2 minute video of the chase can be seen below:

While such hounding is not unprecedented, what went largely unnoticed were the personal attacks by members of the Republic TV crew. In the following video, you can hear someone in the crew stating “You’re a coward” twice.

In the next video, you can hear Republic TV correspondent Khalid Shah ask “Why are you running away Mr Tharoor? Why are you running away like a coward?” at the start. Towards the end, two distinct voices repeat the question again, “Why are you running away like a coward?”

Shashi Tharoor retweeted another leaked video by a Twitter account called ‘The Last Caveman‘ and alleged that he was not just called a coward, but a killer too.

And much worse. "Killer"&"murderer"as well. Over a tragic bereavement.These people are not journalists in any professional sense of the term https://t.co/tMczcOLBvq

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 4, 2017

The kind of bullying that @ShashiTharoor faces at the hands of this #DigitalToiletRoll channel deserves only 1 response: #കടക്ക്‌പുറത്ത്‌ ! pic.twitter.com/B4AlEs46mT

— The Last Caveman (@CarDroidusMax) August 3, 2017

As reported by The News Minute, Shashi Tharoor on Thursday filed an application before the Delhi High Court seeking to restrain Republic TV from making defamatory publications against him with regard to the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.

The Delhi High Court stated that Republic TV has to respect Shashi Tharoor’s right to remain silent on this issue.

#HC says ArnabGoswami and the channel have to respect Tharoor's right to silence on the issue.

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 4, 2017

The day before, Republic TV journalists were denied entry to a All India Congress Committee press conference.

While the act of disallowing journalists of a specific channel by a political party in a public press conference is condemnable, one also wonders if it is journalism when four correspondents and multiple cameramen from the same TV channel chase a politician, shove their microphones into his face and repeatedly ask the question, “Why are you running away like a coward”?