FIR Against ‘The Caravan’ Journalists Condemned
The journalists were reporting in Bhajanpura area of Northeast Delhi on a complaint filed by a victim of the communal violence in February 2020.
THE Press Club of India (PCI) and the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) have strongly condemned an FIR against journalists of the magazine, The Caravan, in the Bhajanpura Police Station in Northeast Delhi, under serious sections in a four-year-old case of alleged assault on the journalists themselves. The sections slapped on the journalists include 153A (promoting communal enmity) and 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman).
The Caravan magazine, in a statement, said it had not received the certified copy of the FIR, citing its “sensitive nature”.
It said the cases against its journalists were “false and fabricated”, and “an attempt to muzzle their reporting”.
“It is also extremely concerning that our reporters, who were reporting on accusations against the police by a Delhi violence complainant, are now facing an FIR at the same police station,” it said, adding that it had joined the investigation and intended to comply fully with the due process of law. “We will exercise our rights under the law to challenge these false accusations….”
Describing the incident, the magazine said that on August 11, 2020, a mob assaulted three journalists—Shahid Tantray, Prabhjit Singh and a woman journalist—in northeast Delhi’s Subhash Mohalla neighbourhood.
“The journalists were subjected to communal slurs and threatened with murder; the woman reporter was sexually harassed. One man who identified himself as “a general secretary” of the Bharatiya Janata Party had launched an attack on our staffers after learning Tantray’s Muslim identity,” it alleged.
At that time, too, the PCI had raised serious concerns about the attack on the journalists and demanded an FIR as well as a judicial probe.
“Most disturbing is the fact that the journalists who were reporting on allegations against the police were attacked and are now facing a serious FIR at the same police station. The same police has not followed up on the FIR by the Caravan journalists”, the PCI said in a statement.
PCI urged the Delhi Police “to halt the FIR against the journalists and to properly investigate the FIR by the Caravan journalists” and also called upon the Delhi High Court to monitor the investigations so that power is not misused to attack press freedom.
The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) also issued a statement saying that “it is shocked by the news that the Delhi Police has decided to prosecute three journalists reporting for Caravan magazine for an incident that happened four years ago. Caravan journalists are reporters, not rioters.”
The DUJ has demanded that the 'investigation' of the FIR be stopped and the entire episode be investigated by the Delhi High Court. The statement further says that we consider the FIR an attack on the freedom of the press and in particular on Caravan which is known for its bold and independent reporting, analysis and disclosures.
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