Hyderabad/Chandigarh, January 29: The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) has strongly condemned the sedition charge FIR against six senior journalists including India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai over the violence during the farmers’ tractors rally in Delhi. The journalists and the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor have been booked by the Noida Police for sedition, misreporting and spreading disharmony among other charges.
In a statement issued on Friday K. Sreenivas Reddy, Balwinder Singh Jammu, President and Secretary General respectively of the IJU described the police case as an attempt to intimidate journalists and browbeat media. They demanded immediate withdrawal of the FIR.
On a day thick with high action on the roads of Delhi the journalists were only doing their duty by reporting news received from various quarters and they can’t be punished for that.
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The IJU leaders expressed serious concern over the cavalier manner in which grave IPC provisions like sedition, spreading communal disharmony are used against journalists frequently. This is being resorted to only with an aim to muzzle media and scare journalists away from fearless reporting.
In this connection, the IJU leaders mentioned the still pending sedition case against senior journalist Vinod Dua for his criticism of Modi Government over its tackling of the corona pandemic. It is interesting to note that the in the just released pandemic handling performance index by Lowy Institute India stood in 86th place among 98 countries, they added.
(Y.Narender Reddy)
Secretary
Press Note
राजदीप, मृणाल समेत कई पत्रकारों से राजद्रोह के मुकदमे तुरंत वापस लेने की मांग
