Expressing shock over the Uttar Pradesh Police’s method in dealing with TV journalist Sulabh Srivastava’s case, the Editors Guild of India on Monday alleged the cops didn’t pay heed to considerations he flagged earlier than his dying. Elevating the problem of freedom of press, the physique stated journalists important of the central and state governments are being focused and unjustifiably charged with sedition instances.
In an announcement, the journalists’ physique stated, “The Editors Guild of India is shocked by the cavalier method wherein Uttar Pradesh Police is treating the mysterious dying of TV journalist, Sulabh Srivastava, in Pratapgarh. Srivastava, who had been threatened by the liquor mafia for exposing their wrongdoings, had just lately written a letter to the police expressing grave apprehensions for his life. He believed that some individuals have been following him. The authorities paid no heed to his fears.”
The Editors Guild of India is shocked by the cavalier method wherein Uttar Pradesh Police is treating the mysterious dying of TV journalist, Sulabh Srivastava, in Pratapgarh. pic.twitter.com/KqYKwByMfe
— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) June 14, 2021
Srivastava, who labored for ABP Information and ABP Ganga, was discovered useless on Sunday evening. Only a day earlier than his dying, he wrote to the Uttar Pradesh Police, saying he felt threatened following his current reportage of liquor mafias within the district. Searching for safety, Srivastava had stated he had been knowledgeable by sources that the liquor mafia was indignant with him after the publication of his report and wished to hurt him or his household.
Regardless of this, the police is “passing off his dying as being brought on by an accident, that his bike rammed right into a hand pump”, the journalists’ physique identified.
The assertion additionally drew consideration to the timing of Srivastava’s dying and stated it has come at a time when information media is below “pressures from central and state governments” to observe the “official narrative concerning the administration’s dealing with of the pandemic”. “What’s extra worrying is that the police and the native authorities liberally and unjustifiably use legal guidelines corresponding to sedition and UAPA to file cost and arrest journalists. That is in opposition to the spirit of the judgment given by the Supreme Court docket in Kedar Nath Singh case and re-iterated within the current sedition case in opposition to Vinod Dua,” the assertion added.
They went on to allege that journalists and cartoonists important of the federal government are additionally being focused on social media below pressures from the federal government on such platforms. “All of this opposite is opposite to the commitments that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made on the G-7 summit to democracy, openness and in opposition to authoritarianism,” they acknowledged.
