In every show we watch lately, regardless of the genre, there are plenty of characters that come across as gray, which means we cannot seem to decide if we like the person or not. But there are times when there are inherently good characters, and what makes them respectable is the way the person in the show is structured by the writers. Mrunmayee Lagoo, Hansal Mehta, and Mirat Trivedi gave us Imran Siddiqui through Scoop, who was the epitome of a good person. Creator and director Hansal Mehta showcased Imran in the hope that there would be people who would pick up some of the strength he showed and take the path of righteousness, but was it easy for Imran to do that?
The show begins with Imran Siddiqui being showcased as a friend and mentor to Jagruti Pathak, who has been working under him for years and has grown to become the most sought-after crime reporter in the city, right after Jaideb Sen, of course. Jaideb happens to be good friends with Imran, but he has always had a rivalry with Jagruti that everyone in the media in Mumbai knew of. Imran was good friends with her but never chose sides because it never felt right for him to do so. He figured two people in the most opinionated field could choose to be rivals because ours is a free country.
Imran knew his job well, and he was aware he would never use his position as the Editor in Chief of the Eastern Age to his benefit. His integrity shines through in the fact that even though he mentored Jagruti and his colleagues might seem to think he was favoring her, Imran never stopped questioning the credibility of her stories every single time. Imran wouldn’t want to publish any story without any proper source confirming it backed by definite proof.
He and Jagruti were a great team, and they were never afraid of ruffling some feathers. Together, they were responsible for questioning the then-commissioner Malik, which led to the man filing a defamation suit against Eastern Age. Malik, who was known to be righteous as well, managed to get irked by the media, who were just doing their job. Thanks to Imran and Jagruti, some newspapers would question the status quo. Imran was a good boss who would never give up on his team of journalists if he knew they were doing the right thing. But his backing of Jagruti was always seen in a negative light by his team and his peers as well.
Jaideb’s murder in broad daylight led to serious questions being thrown at the deceased by the media about his alleged links to the D Company. Imran, who was a close friend of Jaideb, was the first one to pick up that the media and the police were selling a narrative of Jaideb being the villain because it serves the narrative that the then state government and the Mumbai Police crime branch are doing the right thing. Imran never believed the rumors because his collective experience in the field of journalism gave him enough understanding of how commercial media works. He always wanted to be the person who took the road less traveled and encouraged his colleagues to follow this path.
But with Jagruti’s arrest, things looked bleak for him as well because, just like he assumed, the media went after his professional relationship with Jagruti and gave it a harsh spin by implying that the two had an affair, which is why she was flourishing as one of the leading crime reporters. Imran knew his stand, and he did not go out of his way to proclaim himself to be the one being targeted. He wanted to help Jagruti by not giving the media any validation about the supposed affair. Imran thankfully had a great wife in Naila, who knew the man inside out. Naila stood by her husband even in times of storm, and they came out victorious because the affair was just a ruse being used by many peers who could never accept the fact that Jagruti worked hard to reach the position.
Imran refused to make the Eastern Age follow the same path other new publications have taken, which is to publish all incorrect facts about Jagruti’s personal life. All of that was happening in the wake of Jagruti’s arrest. Imran knew this was unethical, and as a journalist and a friend, he would never resort to such tactics to sell the newspaper. He was above all these because no matter what people say about drawing eyeballs and getting TRPs, this man would remain old school, which is to say he’ll stick to publishing facts and, based on the facts, question the status quo. Imran was smart enough to let his management know that if they had a problem with him, they should fire him, and they could not expect a resignation from him. This is solely because he never had a problem with the kind of work he was doing, but if his management had issues with him, they should let him go. They wouldn’t want to do that because they would come across as tyrants who, in the name of protecting journalistic integrity, compromised it.
His fight for Jagruti never stopped till the end because he believed that whatever charges the police had against her were bogus, and the crime branch did not have any solid proof to back their allegations. Imran also lets Pushkar, his successor at Eastern Age, know that he should stay at the job and bring about the change he wants to see. This is where his courage as a journalist would lie.
Imran was aware, as were Jaideb and Jagruti, that there were rumors of the Mumbai Police crime branch protecting the D Company. Jaideb was catching on to this theory, for he had collected enough evidence to prove this frightening story to be true. Jaideb’s trip to Europe, as confirmed by Jagruti herself, was to get the said proof to back up this rumor. His proof was the call records between the then-top cop Acharya and Chhota Shakeel. He saved these call records on a pen drive and locked them away in a safe because Jaideb knew his life was under threat. This pen drive was given to Imran by Jaideb’s wife. Imran, along with Jaideb’s colleague Sandeep, investigates the call records and comes to the conclusion that the Mumbai police crime branch is indeed protecting the D Company, but again, to prove this right in a court of law, the two need to have solid proof to implicate the top cops. Imran knew there was no way these cops could be brought before a court of law to question their links.
But the man is glad that Jagruti is out on bail because this was the fight he knew he was not willing to lose. Along with Jagruti’s family, he was the only person from the field of media who showed immense courage. Just like Jagruti, even Imran was put through a trial, and he came out victorious, just like her.
