Celebs, lay off the task of deciding innocents at least!

Let me do the P.S. first this once: Got tons of people writing to me about the fact that Nokia is a Finnish company, for a previous post of mine. Yes, true. My oversight, sorry and thanks. One particular person wrote the same comment twice and then, when both the comments got deleted by some systemic error before getting posted, wrote for the third time-- anonymously again. WHOEVER YOU ARE, THANK YOU. Your point is taken this time as you can see. :-)

Two days ago, I found this blind man struggling his way up the steps at a suburban railway station. When I offered a hand, he said eagerly, ``Ma'am, I would like to buy some mangoes outside if you can help me choose.'' Loaded with mangoes, we ambled to his bus stop.
On the way, he told me he'd lost his eyesight in the bomb blasts of 1993. He was in Satyam building at Worli when he was hit by a colossal cement slab of the building on his head. ``My skull cracked up and before I fell unconscious, I saw my colleague collapsing under a wall,'' he told me.
``Ma'am,'' he paused reflectively, ``these people (the culprits) are now being given five years, ten years in jail... what's that compared to what we've lost? We'll suffer all our lives, na?'' he said. He'd lost his job and his earnings were down to one-tenth.
Before I could ask him about his family or about what he did, a bus came along and he boarded.
That brought back memories of celebs giving the clean chit to Sanjay Dutt. He is innocent, his family and friends have declared. If they had to meet the blind man's family, would they feel as sympathetic about him?
Do these people know that a top cop had collected mounds of evidence against him and that he was just about to arrest him when he was sidelined? I know a lot of what happened that night when he came to be in possession of those arms but my lips are sealed. I cannot write in public what has not been produced in evidence before the court. But let it be said that he is not the doodh ka dhoola hua sant that he is being made out to be.
In any case, are they even aware that the court has held him guilty of at least the least possible charge-- that of possessing banned arms? Are they saying that there is some mistake, that the arms were planted on him or that the person possessing them was actually the duplicate but not the super hero (ugh!)?
Just for their information, even he is not saying that. Wish these vacuous men and women would stop talking through their hat... and a bigger wish for us media wallahs to stop treating their foot-in-the-mouths like the last word in divinity.
Check out all the protestations of innocence made on behalf of this man called Anand Jon. A lowly, nose-to-the-grind reporter like me would never have heard of this high society fashion designer like him had it not been for some celebs ganging up on a limp, pimply front-page pull-out appointing him as the soul of goodness and all things holy and vouching for how he could never have raped those half a dozen women he was alleged to have.
Well! Why not let the court decide, guys! Leave justice to the judiciary, what?
On second thoughts, walk along the street to see how the other half lives and you might find some people fumbling their way to bus stops, living on half a dole, and haggling for five-penny mangoes. All because they happened to step out on a day when some men had other plans. Yet, there's no one to speak for them. Their rights, I suppose, are not human enough for the zhollawallahs or those superior earthlings to worry about. They get their Rs 500 a dozen mangoes without having to set one pedicured foot out of the door, don't they?