Hyderabad, Jan 14 Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and former Telangana minister T. Harish Rao on Wednesday condemned the arrest of some journalists by the state police on a festival day in connection with a case for allegedly telecasting fake news about a minister and a woman IAS officer.
Taking exception to the arrest of journalists without issuing prior notice, Harish Rao spoke to Director General of Police B. Shivadhar Reddy over the phone and demanded their release.
Urging the police to follow due legal procedure, the BRS leader asked what the need was to arrest them in the middle of the night and on the festival day.
Harish Rao told the DGP that journalists should not be treated like criminals or terrorists and requested that the journalists be summoned by issuing notices after the Sankranti festival.
"Is it necessary to go to journalists' homes in the middle of the night during the festival and make arrests? How can you make arrests without following procedure, without issuing notices? Why are you treating them so harshly?" he asked in a post on X.
The BRS leader said that the police action would cause mental anguish to the families of journalists.
He termed the arrests of journalists an attack on democracy and a direct assault by the Congress government on the self-respect of Telangana journalists. "Who are you protecting with the arrests of journalists and curbs on media and digital media? Who are you hunting down?" he asked.
The DGP on Tuesday constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe two cases registered against various media and social media platforms for allegedly telecasting and circulating fake news about a minister and a woman IAS officer, and for sharing an “obscene and humiliating” image of the Chief Minister in a WhatsApp group.
The eight-member team is headed by Hyderabad Police Commissioner V. C. Sajjanar.
A case was registered against NTV, T News and several other news channels, as well as YouTube channels and social media handles, on a complaint filed by Special Chief Secretary Jayesh Ranjan on behalf of the IAS Officers' Association.
Jayesh Ranjan, who is Secretary of the Telangana IAS Officers’ Association, stated in his complaint that on January 8, NTV published and telecast a news item regarding a woman IAS officer that was “completely false, fabricated and baseless".
The complainant said that unsubstantiated allegations were made against a serving woman IAS officer, insinuating an alleged personal relationship with a political executive and attempting to link her official postings to such baseless claims.
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