Police case against The Hindu RE decried

Highlights

Police case against S Nagesh Kumar, Resident Editor of The Hindu, came in for condemnation by the media circles and political leaders on Tuesday.

Publication of DGP’s visit to Idrus Baba

Hyderabad: Police case against S Nagesh Kumar, Resident Editor of The Hindu, came in for condemnation by the media circles and political leaders on Tuesday. The Assistant Commissioner of Police Madhapur, Ram Narsimha Reddy lodged a complaint against The Hindu Editor alleging that a report published on the front page of the daily on September 13 relating to a meeting of DGP V Dinesh Reddy with Habib Mustafa Idrus Baba at Fateh Darwaza in the Old City was false and without any basis and verification of facts. The police registered cases under Sections 505 and 469 which deal with dissemination of false and mischievous news and forgery for the purpose of harming reputation.

Narsimha Reddy in his complaint stated that the publication was mala fide to harm the reputation of the office of DGP in particular and entire police force in general “to cause alarm and fear among the public and with an ulterior motive to demoralise the police force…”

The FIR registered against Nagesh Kumar said that such visits of DGP cannot be questioned since it was meant to protect the interests of public and maintain law and order, peace and harmony among various religious groups in the wake of Ganesh Chaturthi and Immersion slated for Wednesday.

TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu in a statement issued here condemned the case against The Hindu Resident Editor. He said it would amount to an attack on freedom of press. The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) and the Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) strongly condemned the police for filing the case.

The purported story which the police claimed to have incited communal passion was unexceptional and in public interest. It only reported a fact that the Director General of Police visited a Habib Mustafa Idrus Baba at Fateh Darwaza in the Old City on September 12.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, the Secretary General of the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) Devulapalli Amar, General Secretary of Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) Y Narender Reddy said that the Special Correspondent of the Hindu following the best practices of journalism, contextualized the news and gave a proper perspective to the news story for the benefit of the reader. “It seems the Director General of Police has become intolerant and trying to muzzle the press if it published anything unpalatable to him. This is a direct attack on the freedom of the press. We urge upon the government to immediately intervene and revoke the case against the Resident Editor of the Hindu,” they said.

Amar and Narender Reddy called upon the working journalists in the state to protest against the attack on the freedom of the press and democratic right of the people to know.

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