It’s an oft-repeated topic but I can’t help feel frustrated when I see the headline “16% UK Muslims stand by London bombers” in the Internet edition of the second most widely circulated English daily in India. The headline could well have been, “64 per cent UK Muslims against London bombers”. (The report added that 13 percent of the Muslims polled thought the bombers were martyrs while seven percent felt suicide attacks on British civilians were justified in some circumstances.) Agreed 16 per cent is a large chunk of people and 36 per cent is even larger but isn’t 64 per cent the largest of all and that it deserves to be the headline?

Instead, while deciding the headline (which is only what most “readers” read), the editor deliberately chose to highlight the negative views of the Muslims while ignoring other aspects of the report like 78 percent of Muslims would be unhappy if a family member joined al-Qaeda or 56 percent would support combative steps against extremism in the Muslim community.

Ironically, the same newspaper had no mention of the alleged rape and murder of an Iraqi woman by a former US soldier who’s now facing charges for the crime. Similarly, another English daily which is the most widely circulated one in India, gave no coverage to the Iraq rape case. Had the victim been an American and the perpetrator an Iraqi, the whole world would have gone upside down.

As said earlier, the point of this piece has been oft-repeated: that the media is disturbingly biased against the coverage of Muslims in distress and jumps at giving bold, large headlines to the ramblings of Laden, his henchmen and his blind followers. Incidentally, the newspaper that carried the "16% UK Muslims ....." headline today also carried headlines like "Bin Laden wants more chaos in Somalia: PM " and "Osama hails Zarqawi as lion of holy war." Thus, giving the world’s most wanted terrorist the attention he so desperately seeks all the time.

A couple of years back, I would get angry and sad when I would see a newspaper, for instance, screaming, “58 Hindus killed in Godhra, Islamic group suspected” while conveniently whispering, “89 people killed in post-Godhra riots today” or “Rioters set ablaze 2 places of worship today”. The “people” were, of course, Muslims, the “riots” were actually genocide, and the “places of worship” were mosques or dargahs.

As years passed by and with age, I became immune to the wide coverage of reports that put Muslims in bad light (many times deservedly so) and the shy coverage of Muslims in distress. Such unbalanced journalism didn’t bother me anymore. Or so I thought, till I saw the “16 per cent UK Muslims…….” headline today.