Legal notice sent to Aaj Tak over insensitive coverage of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death

News: Mohit Singh, a lawyer from Delhi, has served the India Today group, which runs the news channels India Today and Aaj Tak, a legal notice over the insensitive and inappropriate coverage of the alleged suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput.

Here are five components of the story:

• Aaj Tak ran a news ticker that read “Aise kaise ‘hit wicket’ ho gaye Sushant?” A ‘hit wicket’ refers to a a way of getting dismissed in cricket, the ticker was likely alluding to his role in the film Dhoni. The text in the ticker translated to “How did Sushant get hit wicket?”
• On Sunday, 34-year-old Sushant Singh Rajput of MS Dhoni: An Untold Story fame, died by suicide at his home in Bandra, Mumbai. In the film, which was a biopic of the former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sushant played the role of Dhoni.
• Zee News was also criticised for its coverage of the 34-year-old actor’s death, with #ShameOnAajTak and #ShameOnZee News trending on Twitter.
• LiveLaw.in quoted the lawyer Mohit’s notice as saying, “”By this comment Aaj Tak has insinuated that the death of Mr. Sushant by suicide is equivalent to that of a batsman in cricket who breaks his own wicket with his bat or any part of his person while playing the ball or setting off for a run.”
• The lawyer has asked the India Today group to issue an unconditional apology for their coverage of the actor’s death, failing which he would take legal action against them. “The said apology should include that you take full responsibility of the mistake committed by your channel and the news of suicide is a mere comment by the police and that the post-mortem report is awaited,” the notice reads.