The Rajasthan Police on Friday picked up two journalists from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, claiming that they had carried false and defamatory stories against Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and demanded Rs 5 crore to take them down.
Anand Pandey, Editor in Chief of The Sootr, and Harish Divekar, the Managing Editor of the news website, were picked up by the Rajasthan police from Bhopal, where the news portal is headquartered.
Speaking to The Indian Express, a spokesperson for The Sootr termed the police action “shocking and unlawful”. Jaipur police claimed their “investigation revealed that the accused had made an illegal demand of Rs 5 crore to remove false news” from the portal and that they had planned to launch a ‘Destroy Diya’ campaign.
Speaking to The Indian Express, a spokesperson for The Sootr said that over the last seven years, they have “consistently raised questions about governance, accountability, and public interest” and that “our reporting on the corruption allegations involving the Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister is backed by proper documentation and verifiable evidence”.
“On Friday, two of our senior journalists — Divekar and Pandey — were picked up by the Rajasthan police from Bhopal in a shocking and unlawful manner. Both were in the city at the time — Divekar was with his family, and Pande was meeting a friend,” the spokesperson said.
“This act is nothing short of an attempt to intimidate and silence independent journalism. Our team has not fabricated any information; every report we have published is supported by documents and facts. When our representatives attempted to register an FIR regarding the illegal detention, the police refused to accept our complaint,” the spokesperson alleged, calling it “a clear misuse of state power aimed at suppressing critical reporting”.
The complaint, lodged by one Narendra Singh Rathore at Jaipur’s Karni Vihar police station against the news portal, alleged “systematic and conspiratorial blackmailing by broadcasting false and defamatory news, and for illegally demanding crores of rupees in the name of removing the broadcasted news and videos from the web portal and YouTube”. Rathore did not respond to calls from The Indian Express.
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The complaint alleged that the news portal “has been continuously running false and misleading news for the past few days, conspiring to defame Kumari”.
“This channel has broadcast nearly a dozen baseless and false news stories in the past month… Pandey and Divekar have contacted individuals known to us and demanded crores to remove the false news and not to run false news in the future. These people also claim that they have received a large sum of money to run these false news stories…,” it alleged.
The news portal had been running a series titled ‘Diya tale andhera (darkness under the lamp)’.
In a statement, the office of Jaipur Police Commissioner Biju George Joseph said that following the complaint, “a report was filed and an investigation was conducted, statements of relevant witnesses were recorded, and technical data was obtained”.
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“Information was obtained regarding the technical aspects and the news and issues broadcast on the channel. The investigation revealed that the news broadcast was not based on facts. The investigation revealed that the accused had made an illegal demand of Rs 5 crore to remove false news from The Sootr channel and the web page and to prevent the broadcast of false news in the future,” the Commissioner’s office claimed.
“If the money was not paid, they were found to have threatened to launch an operation called ‘Destroy Diya’ against the Deputy CM of Rajasthan. Based on the investigation and the evidence obtained, the crime against Pandey, Divekar and others was proven. The investigating officer reached Bhopal and detained the accused and is bringing them to Jaipur for investigation so that they can be investigated along with other officials of The Sootr,” Joseph’s office claimed, adding that “further investigation is underway regarding the role of other accused and associates involved in this criminal act.”
The FIR has been lodged under BNS sections 356 (defamation), 308 (extortion), 353 (making, publishing or circulating any statement, false information, rumour, or report, including through electronic means), as well as sections of the IT Act.
