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ED Charges Mahesh Langa: Here's Why the Journalist Has Been in Jail For Six Months

The Gujarat police has filed three FIRs against the journalist, one of which is because he had 'sensitive' documents.
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The Wire Staff
Apr 22 2025
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The Gujarat police has filed three FIRs against the journalist, one of which is because he had 'sensitive' documents.
ed charges mahesh langa  here s why the journalist has been in jail for six months
Mahesh Langa. Photo: X
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New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has charged Gujarat-based journalist Mahesh Langa under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), filing a prosecution complaint (similar to a charge sheet) against him. 

The agency arrested the journalist – who was already in a Gujarat jail – in February. Langa, who had been a senior assistant editor at The Hindu, has been in jail in a GST evasion case – one of three filed against him by Gujarat police – since October 9.

Five journalists’ bodies – the Delhi Union of Journalists, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Press Association and Kerala Union of Working Journalists together with the Press Club of India, and the Editors Guild of India – have called police action against him shocking and pointed to this being possible retribution for his work.

The ED's complaint was filed with a special PMLA court in Ahmedabad on April 17, and the court accepted it the same day, the ED announced on April 22.

The ED has accused Langa of cheating and extortion using his media connections. The ED has claimed Langa allegedly threatened to damage complainants' reputations by publishing defamatory articles unless they paid him large sums.

"This form of media manipulation was found central to his extortion activities, which caused an undue loss to the tune of lakhs of rupees to various individuals," the agency said.

An Ahmedabad office linked to Langa was provisionally attached under PMLA provisions on April 9.

The ED's investigation began after the First Information Reports (FIRs) were filed by Ahmedabad police against him. 

The first was registered in an alleged GST evasion case. Langa, who was then not even named in the FIR, was arrested by Ahmedabad crime branch officials. Neither Manoj – Langa's relative who owned the company being accused of GST evasion – nor Langa’s wife, who is a silent partner it is, had been arrested.

The second was in a theft case against him after documents belonging to the Gujarat Maritime Board were allegedly found in his home. Journalists had noted how a reporter would, thanks to the very nature of his work, need to peruse sensitive documents. “It is axiomatic that journalists will, due to the nature of their profession and in the pursuance of public interest, be in possession of all kinds of material, including documents, accessed from various sources. To implicate and incriminate mediapersons for the mere possession of documents is tantamount to a fundamental assault on the profession itself," the four journalists' bodies mentioned earlier in the piece had said.

The Hindu’s editor Suresh Nambath also echoed these sentiments, backing Langa in a public post on X.

An earlier ED probe into financial irregularities started last October, linked to an FIR stemming from a Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) complaint about bogus input tax credit claims.

A third FIR is ostensibly about a cheating case; a businessman in the advertising industry accused Langa of duping him of Rs 28.68 lakh and threatening to smear his business when asked to return the money.

Many journalists have vouched for Langa's integrity since his arrest. Some took note of his last story on the impact of the ban on Russian-origin diamonds on Gujarat’s diamond industry.

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