There's so much of violence and blood around today that journalists seem to have become inured to the usage of words pertaining to killings, deaths, violence. So much so that many have started believing that from killing to execution, and from massacre to carnage, they all mean the same thing.
Read this extract from "Delhi Police bringing Abu Salem to town" (Hindustan Times; June 25, 2006):
On Dawood's orders, Salem and Sharma had hatched the plot to assassinate Babloo Srivastava. On November 1, 1998 Sharma spoke to Salem on the phone from his Mehrauli farmhouse. The two discussed the plan to kill Srivastava who was then lodged in the Allahabad jail, unaware that Delhi Police were tapping their phone.
Plot to assassinate? Now, that's giving too much importance to a person of such dubious standing in society as Srivastava. An assassination is not the same as murder, by any yardstick. To assasinate is to kill by a surprise assault. Good subs reserve assassination for murders carried out with political motives, primarily those of prominent persons, often publicly. In this case, murder would have sufficed.
Gandhi's assassination is fine, but Srivastava's is a cruel joke on readers.
