Dear Editor,

I was amused to read a comment by Jam-e-Jamshed’s (JJ)s Editor, Shernaz Engineer in last Sunday’s JJ where she claimed “Jame’s pages are open to all.” In Feb 2016, I wrote to the BPP Trustees calling upon them to investigate the allotment of a house made to one Dr. Viraf Kapadia who had been placing paid advertisements in the JJ. Thereafter, I personally went to the JJ office with a letter to the editor requesting that it be published in the next issue. The person in JJ who accepted my letter inquired whether I would be giving the same to Parsi Times. I informed him that since Viraf Kapadia was extensively advertising in JJ, I preferred that JJ carry my letter. I was not surprised when JJ did not carry my letter.

I’m in the habit of audio-recording my comments on various issues concerning the community and sharing it on whatsapp, which generally goes viral in a couple of days. It was one such recording about Dinshaw Mehta arranging for red earth at Doongerwadi and my questioning the need for our community to go out and seek help from the Govt. of Maharashtra through the office of Mangal Prabhat Lodha that started it all. Pleased by my appreciation of his work, Dinshaw Mehta called me up and during that discussion asked me to take up the issue of the allotment of a house to Dr. Farokh Master. When I asked him how he knew of the details of this allotment, he laughed and said that I shouldn’t forget that his son was a Trustee. Based on the half information given to me by Dinshaw, I put out the first recording for Farokh Master. This I am willing to state on oath, if required.

However the purpose of this letter to you is to record my concern about the way JJ has gone about treating this issue and using it to force the BPP to advertise in JJ. That of course is up to JJ’s Editor’s discretion on how to conduct her business. My only concern is let her not get away with pretending that the pages of JJ are open to everybody. This is not true, and I am sure dozens of people will have had similar experiences with JJ.

People like me have written to both – JJ and PT, however certain people, like Viraf Kapadia and Rayomand Zaiwala will never have written to your newspaper, is what I assume. You may correct me if I am wrong. Where else would a person be able to print an advt looking like a letter to the editor with small crop mark to indicate that it’s an advertisement, which of course, the general public will never realize. This is not journalism, or at least certainly not ethical journalism.

This time around I am not even going to send a copy of this letter to JJ knowing fully well that it would not be published and I hope that PT will not deny me the right to be heard on this issue.

Jamshed Salamat Irani