Complaint
In a report which touched on the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, the reporter described the event as “When British troops shot hundreds dead in the Jallianwala Bagh gardens”. A listener complained on the basis that the troops in question were Indian, being members of regiments raised in India. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
In the ECU’s view, references to British troops would usually be taken as referring to the army in which they served, rather than their ethnicity. We noted that a previous response from the BBC had said the reporter could alternatively have stated that the massacre was carried out by “regiments of the British Indian Army”, and agreed this would have been more precise, but did not consider the difference so material as to amount to a breach of the BBC’s standards of accuracy.
Not upheld