New Delhi: The Caravan magazine has alleged that the Delhi police suddenly, nearly four years after an incident of violence against their journalists in Delhi in 2020, has told its three journalists that there is an FIR against them, in which “the three journalists were named and accused under serious sections such as 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman) and 153A (promoting communal enmity).”
They have not been given a certified copy of the FIR, citing its “sensitive nature”.
Intriguingly, on August 11, 2020, says The Caravan, “a mob assaulted three journalists working with The Caravan – 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 of Tantray’s Muslim identity.”
They recall that “the attack on our journalists lasted for an hour and a half. Once the police intervened, the journalists were taken to Bhajanpura police station, where they filed detailed complaints.”
But even as their complaints were filed on the day of the incident itself, “the police did not register our FIR until three days later, on August 14, 2020.” But now, says The Caravan, the police say theirs is a “counter FIR” as the FIR which they have not yet been shown, was “lodged less than an hour before our FIR on the same day in 2020.”
They say, “The allegations in the FIR are absolutely false and fabricated. For four years, neither The Caravan nor the named journalists were ever informed of any such FIR.”
The investigation in their FIR, “which detailed the attack on our staffers, remains pending. Neither were our reporters asked to join the investigation in that case, nor were we informed of the status of progress, for four years. By contrast, the alleged case against our reporters has been duly put together.”
The journalists at the time were reporting on a story concerning a Delhi violence complainant. Violence broke out in February 2020, shortly before the pandemic lockdown, in north east Delhi, in which at least 53 lives were lost.
The Caravan report was centred “on a Muslim woman who had accused police officials at the Bhajanpura police station of beating and sexually assaulting her and her 17-year-old daughter a few days earlier. The woman had approached the police in early August 2020, after communal tensions arose in the area following the foundation-stone-laying ceremony of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Earlier that year, the woman in question had also filed a complaint regarding the Delhi violence of February 2020.”
The role of the Delhi police in investigating the Delhi violence has come under scrutiny by the courts and last year, in three separate orders in less than a fortnight in August, a judge in Delhi made sharp remarks about the Delhi Police’s investigation into the riots. You can read a list of court orders where the judges rapped the Delhi Police for “biased”, “improper” investigation into the Delhi riots here.
The Caravan press release says that “the conduct of the police during the violence, especially towards Muslims, has come under serious question.”
They have termed this “a false and fabricated case is an attempt to muzzle their reporting. This is an outright attack on press freedom and a direct violation of the freedom of speech and expression. We have joined the investigation and intend to comply fully with the due process of law. We will exercise our rights under the law to challenge these false accusations and have them dismissed.”
Meanwhile, the Press Club of India (PCI) has condemned the FIR against the journalists. “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 press statement.
“This is a clear attempt to suppress journalists and to throttle press freedom. The PCI extends its full support to the journalists of The Caravan who are being persecuted simply for carrying out their journalistic duty. We also condemn the biased and vindictive conduct of the Delhi Police. We call on the Delhi Police to carry out its duty fairly and without bias, to halt the FIR against the journalists and to properly investigate the FIR by the Caravan journalists. We also call on the Delhi High Court to monitor the investigations so that power is not misused to attack press freedom,” the PCI added.
Last month, India was ranked at 159, out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index.
