Media watchdogs in India have accused the police in Uttar Pradesh state of “grave overreach” for submitting instances in opposition to journalists after they wrote in regards to the alleged lynching of a Muslim man final week in social media posts.
Police within the northern state’s Shamli district charged two journalists – Wasim Akram Tyagi and his cousin Zakir Ali Tyagi – for commenting on the killing of Firoz Qureshi within the district’s Jalalabad city.
The journalists had been charged with inflicting “hatred and anger” in society. Three different Muslims who shared their social media posts had been additionally named within the first data report (FIR) filed by the police. None of them have been arrested to date.
Wasim, a reporter with Hind Information newspaper in Dehli, informed Al Jazeera on Thursday he was “shocked” when he heard that prices had been filed in opposition to him over the alleged lynching.
“Now, as journalists, if we will’t name homicide a homicide, what ought to we name it, then? If a journalist will not be going to lift questions, who will? … If we’re going to be charged for this, it raises questions on press freedom,” the 36-year-old informed Al Jazeera.
“The influence this can have is that anytime you write one thing, you’ll have to suppose twice: What if an FIR is filed over scripting this or that?”
Indian police launch prison investigation into 2 journalists below new penal code@ZakirAliTyagi @WasimAkramTyagi https://t.co/DRVQAyz3LQ
— CPJ Asia (@CPJAsia) July 10, 2024
Zakir, 25, additionally rejected the police prices, saying he merely disseminated data that had already been shared by the Qureshi household. He mentioned he was “not shocked” by the FIR in opposition to him.
“I used to be anticipating the FIR for a very long time as a result of I had been solely posting and writing about lynching instances recorded throughout India,” he informed Al Jazeera, including that this was not the primary time a police case was registered in opposition to him.
Circumstances of mob lynching of Muslims by Hindu teams and mobs, primarily below the pretext of defending cows, an animal thought of holy by a big part of Hindus, spiked after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) got here to energy in 2014. Dozens have been killed in such assaults.
Zakir mentioned the folks charged by the police within the Shamli case, together with him, had been being focused as a result of they had been Muslims.
“Every little thing we wrote, all of the questions we’ve raised, had been additionally written or utilized in movies by Hindu journalists,” he informed Al Jazeera. “However no FIR was registered in opposition to them.”
Al Jazeera reached out to police officers in Shamli however obtained no response.
In the meantime, the police additionally filed an FIR in opposition to a number of individuals allegedly concerned in Qureshi’s killing after his household filed a criticism in opposition to the suspects. It isn’t but clear if any arrests had been made.
However the police declare Qureshi’s dying was not a case of mob lynching. “The person was overwhelmed up by a couple of males when he entered their residence. However he died at his [own] residence. We’ve additionally performed a postmortem,” a senior police officer in Shamli informed India’s Scroll web site.
Nevertheless, Qureshi’s brother Mohammed Afzal insisted it was a case of lynching. He informed The Quint web site there have been accidents everywhere in the deceased’s physique, together with on his abdomen and again, suggesting he was assaulted with an intent to kill.
Journalist Wasim additionally questioned the police model.
“Whereas the police say this was not a case of lynching, the household says Qureshi was overwhelmed up. There’s a recorded video of them saying that. And it was on that foundation that we raised questions concerning the police’s conduct in direction of the dying,” he mentioned.
‘Crime to report against the law’
India’s press our bodies, together with the Press Membership of India, the Indian Girls’s Press Corps and Digipub Information India Basis, a gaggle of digital-only information shops, condemned the police motion in opposition to the journalists, saying they had been “extraordinarily perturbed” by the costs levelled in opposition to the journalists and demanding that the FIRs be instantly withdrawn.
“Registering an FIR in opposition to journalists sharing data within the public curiosity is a grave overreach and misuse of prison legal guidelines and an assault on press freedom that has a chilling impact,” Digipub mentioned in a publish on X.
“Whereas the police has contested the character of the incident, saying it wasn’t communal in nature, there was no trigger for filling instances in opposition to journalists who had been placing out data made out there to them.”
Kunal Majumder, who represents the Committee to Shield Journalists in India, mentioned the investigations in opposition to Zakir and Wasim Akram for highlighting “police misconduct and sectarian tensions” had been alarming.
“The authorities ought to drop this investigation and concentrate on addressing the problems raised by these journalists slightly than punishing them for his or her work,” he mentioned in an announcement.
Journalist and creator Ziya Us Salam informed Al Jazeera that the police submitting instances in opposition to journalists was meant to “merely intimidate” them.
“On one hand, the mainstream media turns a blind eye to lynching cases. On the opposite, when unbiased media covers such assaults, the administration tries to muzzle it via such actions,” mentioned Salam, whose 2023 e-book, Being Muslim in Hindu India, argues that the minority group is “below siege” in a BJP-ruled India.
“It appears it’s against the law in Modi’s India to report against the law,” he mentioned, including that “one has to struggle on” since being silent was “not an possibility”.
A number of journalists have complained of harassment in recent times, with rights teams and media watchdogs accusing the Modi-led authorities of cracking down on the press essential of its affairs.
In October, NewsClick web site’s founder and editor Prabir Purkayastha was arrested, after a New York Occasions report alleged his portal was supported financially by a Chinese language-based community. India’s Supreme Court docket in Might ordered Purkayastha’s launch on bail, calling his arrest “unlawful”.
Indian tax authorities additionally raided the workplaces of the BBC in New Delhi and Mumbai in 2022, shortly after the British broadcaster launched a documentary essential of Modi.
India is ranked 159 out of 180 international locations within the 2024 World Press Freedom Index, launched by media watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF).