New Delhi: After 65 years of independence, the present Congress-led government is pushing the media to not speak the truth and to gag it. It is practically the Emergency revisited in India on November 27, 2012, a day that will also be known as a black day in Indian history.
While the matter is sub-judice before the honourable High Court of Bombay, to circumvent the judicial process and the orders of the honourable High Court, the Delhi Police, at the behest of a Congress MP, orchestrated the arrests of two senior editors of Zee News, Samir Ahluwalia and Sudhir Chaudhary, on the basis of a fraudulent and contrived complaint filed on behalf of his company, Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL).
The arrests have been made to sensationalise the issue and to lend a cover to the coal scam and in particular to favour Naveen Jindal, Congress MP, and his company JSPL.
This is a crude attack on the freedom of the press, a constitutionally enshrined right. JSPL is using the state machinery, controlled by the Congress both at the Centre and in Delhi, to muzzle voices of dissent and to interfere with the legitimate rights of the media in an attempt to divert attention from its illegalities and misdeeds, which the Zee News editors had sought to highlight in the public interest.
The first information report (FIR) registered against the two editors and others is nothing but a clever attempt to divert attention from JSPL's own role in the coal scam, which was exposed by the CAG and is being investigated by the CBI.
The channel vehemently denies all allegations levelled against it. The channel strongly condemns the arbitrary and illegal action of the Delhi Police in arresting its two editors and for initiating a malicious, illegal and motivated prosecution. We wish to reiterate that no offence has been committed by members of the Zee News staff.
First Published: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 10:35