Uttarakhand journalist defends reporting from flood victim's shoulders

Narayan Pargaien, who works for a TV news channel in flood-hit state, says that the criticism he has faced since the video was posted online was unfair. He claims that the man who carried him in ankle-deep water had done so as a sign of respect.

A television journalist from Uttarakhand reporting on the deadly floods on Tuesday defended his decision to file a report while perched on a survivor's shoulders.

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Narayan Pargaien, who works for the local News Express channel, told media website newslaundry.com that the criticism he has faced since the video was posted online was unfair.

"People are talking about us being inhuman and wrong but we were actually helping some of the victims there," Pargaien said.

The reporter claimed that the slight man who carried him, and could be seen wobbling under his weight while standing in ankle-high water, had hoisted him onto his shoulders as a sign of respect.

The man "wanted to show me some respect, as it was the first time someone of my level had visited his house. So while crossing the river he offered to help by carrying me, between which, I thought of reporting," Pargaien said.

The journalist also attacked his cameraman for framing the shot so it showed him sitting on the floods survivor's shoulders and accused him of posting the video online.

"The report was supposed to be telecast only with footage of me chest-up. This was entirely the cameraman's fault, who tried to sabotage my career by shooting from that distance and angle and releasing the video," he said.

"I was wrong as well. That was the wrong thing to do, and the wrong time to have shot that sequence. But what my cameraman did was even more unacceptable."

The video has been viewed more than 33,000 times since it was posted on YouTube on Saturday and has now been uploaded by various people on their YouTube channels.