New Delhi, 18 September 2021: The Indian Journalists Union condemns the high-handedness of the Haryana Police for arresting Dainik Bhaskar Editor Sandeep Sharma and reporter Sunil Brar for a factual error in a news report, which they corrected after their attention was drawn to it. The Union demanded the police stop intimidating journalists by misusing the law.
According to reports, the Hindi daily had on September 16 given the wrong location of the arrest of a suspected terrorists said to be behind a bomb blast plot in Punjab a month earlier. The report said the arrest took place at the Ambala Cantonment area near the Indian Oil Corporation depot in Ambala district, whereas the arrest was made at the Jalandhar-Amritsar highway section of Hambowal village in Kapurthala district, at a distance of 20 kms.
The Editor rectified the error the next day, but was arrested under IPC and charged under sedition section 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 177 (furnishing false information), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity and hatred or ill-will between classes) The police claimed that the public was ‘misinformed and an attempt made to create panic’.
Importantly, Brar was on September 18 granted bail by an Ambala court, wherein the judge noted: “After perusal of the remand paper and the copy of the newspaper produced by the Investigating Officer, this court is of the view that there was nothing (of the sort) which can create enmity between classes…” Political parties too condemned the arrest.
In a statement IJU President and former member of Press Council of India Geetartha Pathak and Secretary General and International Federation of Journalists Vice President Sabina Inderjit said ‘Minor factual error may happen in news media, and it is the duty of the media to recognise and correct it. Filing a case against such an error even after the correction of the error is just an intimidation tactic.”Action of the Haryana police should be viewed with serious concern as it is another bid to harass journalists and stifle press freedom. The Khattar government must allow media to do its job, which is critical for a functioning democracy.
