Two journalists associated with Telugu news channel NTV were arrested by the Telangana Police on Wednesday in connection with the broadcast of allegedly false and defamatory content against a serving woman Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and a state minister.
Those arrested were Donthu Ramesh, input editor of NTV, and Sudheer, a reporter with the channel. Ramesh was detained at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad on Tuesday night while he was about to board a flight to Bangkok, while Sudheer was picked up from his residence in the city. Another NTV journalist, Paripurna Chari, was detained for questioning and later released.
The case was registered following a complaint filed on January 10 by Jayesh Ranjan, secretary of the Telangana IAS Officers’ Association, at the Hyderabad Central Crime Station (CCS).
The complaint alleged that certain television channels had aired “completely false, fabricated and baseless” allegations against a woman IAS officer, linking her postings to an alleged personal relationship with a minister in the Revanth Reddy government’s Cabinet. Based on the complaint, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted, according to an official press release issued by the Hyderabad Police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar, IPS.
The police have registered cases against NTV, T News and several other television channels, YouTube channels and social media accounts under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Information Technology Act, and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.
“We took some reporters of a news channel into custody for questioning in relation to a case booked regarding causing insult and humiliation to a woman IAS officer. Spreading false information without any basis and resorting to character assassination, especially about a woman officer, is absolutely wrong,” Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar, IPS, told the media.
The SIT also conducted searches at the NTV office and seized computers and hard disks as part of the investigation.
Responding to the arrests, Donthu Ramesh released a video statement saying, “The arrest is illegal, and we will fight it legally in court.” Sudheer claimed that the case had been booked despite them not being responsible for the allegedly libellous content that was aired.
On Thursday, the journalists were produced before a magistrate and were granted bail, PTI reported. The court directed them to surrender their passports.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.
