Journalists and Opposition leaders said the move was yet another of the ruling CPI(M)'s attempts to intimidate the media.
Akhila Nandakumar on a reporting assignment. Photo: Supplied.
The ruling CPI(M) in Kerala — which says it’s a free speech advocate and often castigates the BJP-RSS regime at the Centre for intimidating critical media — found itself on a sticky wicket late on Saturday, 10 June, with the state police naming a senior woman journalist as an accused in a case related to an alleged conspiracy to defame a top leader of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the party’s student wing.
Asianet News‘s chief reporter Akhila Nandakumar has been named as the fifth accused in the case lodged by SFI state secretary PM Arsho, alleging a conspiracy to defame him.
Others accused in the case, registered on a directive from the state police headquarters, are: Vinod Kumar, who coordinates the Archaeology and Material Cultural Studies Department at Kochi’s leading autonomous institution Maharajah’s College, its principal, Dr VS Joy, state president of the Congress student wing KSU, Alosiouis Xavier, and KSU’s college unit vice-president CA Faisal.
Akhila Nandakumar
Coming to Akhila’s defence, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) said that she was never part of any conspiracy to tarnish anybody’s image.
In this case, she was discharging her professional duties during a live telecast in which the other accused in the case had explained their positions about the allegations made against Arsho.
KUWJ described the police’s bid to grill Akhila in connection with the case as an attempt to stifle independent media in the state where the Home Department is handled directly by Chief Minister and CPI(M) Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan.
When contacted by South First, Asianet executive editor Sindhu Suryakumar alleged that the police had registered the case against Akhila with dubious motives and without even verifying the charges levelled by Arsho, who faces several criminal cases and feels aggrieved over the continuing media focus on the charges against him.
According to top sources in the government, Vijayan’s political secretary P Sasi and media affairs secretary PM Manoj directed the police to take stern action against the journalist who brought the allegation against Arsho into the limelight.
Interestingly, the case was registered when Vijayan was touring the US to attend a conference of Loka Kerala Sabha comprising non-resident Keralites apart from meeting world bank officials.
The action soon took on political overtones with AICC general secretary and MP KC Venugopal, former Kerala home minister Ramesh Chennithala, Lok Sabha member Benny Behnanan, and BJP leader K Surendran describing the move as yet another display of the “fascist tendencies” of the Vijayan government.
Interestingly, despite the cyber wing of the CPI(M) initiating a campaign against Akhila on social media, no CPI(M) leader has so far come out defending the police for targeting the journalist.
Launching a scathing attack against Vijayan, Venugopal termed the move as an attempt to stifle independent journalism at a time when fascist forces are silencing voices of dissent nationwide. The act proves Vijayan, too, has fascist tendencies, said Venugopal.
According to the FIR, a controversy erupted after the mark list of the third-semester postgraduate programme in Archaeology and Material Cultural Studies at Maharaja’s College mentioned that Arsho had passed the exam.
However, it later transpired that he did not appear for the exam at all.
The FIR alleged that Vinod Kumar and Joy conspired to prepare a wrong mark list to defame Arsho. As per the charges, the principal had falsely informed the media that Arsho had registered for the examination.
The KSU leaders and Akhila were accused of publicising these details on different platforms.
The FIR has been registered under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 465 (forgery), 469 (forgery for harming reputation), and 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code and 120 (O) of the Kerala Police Act, which ensures punishment for circulating offensive or threatening content.
According to Arsho, he had not applied for the third-semester examination of the 2021-22 batch of the postgraduate programme in Archaeology and Material Cultural Studies, so there was no question of him passing the examination.
P M Arsho
However, the mark list controversy erupted last week after KSU leaders alleged that the downloaded copy of the document from the college website had mentioned that Arsho had passed the examination, though the total cumulative points he received was mentioned as “zero”.
The controversy became a major story for Kerala’s mainstream media.
In a social media post in response to the media reports, Arsho stated that the mark list that came into the public domain was related to the 2021 batch, and he originally belonged to the 2020 batch.
He said he did not remit the fee as part of the registration process for the third-semester exam as he was out of the station to deal with some criminal cases pending against him.
He also recalled that a court order prevented him from entering Ernakulam district, of which Kochi is a part.
Maharajah’s College principal VS Joy, who initially rejected Arsho’s claim, had released a document stating that the student leader had applied for the third-semester supplementary exams after remitting the fee prescribed, though he did not appear for it.
However, within a few hours, the principal retracted his statement and pointed out that Arsho had not paid the fee for the third-semester exam even though the online system in the exam wing had shown that he had registered for it.
This was revealed after verification of the documents, and it seemed that his name had figured on the list owing to a technical glitch, the principal said.
When South First contacted him, Joy reiterated that it was a technical error on the part of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which handles the software used to enter and publish exam results of the college.
“It was a technical software error. Such errors have happened before, and we have informed NIC about it. We withdrew the results once students pointed out the error, and the error will be rectified,” he said.
Meanwhile, an internal inquiry ordered by Higher Education Department is now underway into the episode.
However, the government has proceeded with the criminal case without waiting for the report of the inquiry.
When contacted by South First, Akhila said she had no clue about the mark list controversy when she went to the college to get bites from the principal, other authorities, and KSU leaders, in connection with another story.
“I went there a day after leading Malayalam newspaper Mathrubhumi reported that a former SFI leader of the college was caught red-handed for submitting a fake teaching experience certificate of the institution in another government college to secure a guest lecturer’s job,” Akhila said.
“I took bites of the principal, a senior professor, and two KSU leaders on the fake experience certificate controversy involving a lady SFI leader. The whole conversation went live as it was the time of a news bulletin.
“While responding to my questions, (KSU college unit vice-president) Faisal said there was another grave matter involving Arsho and disclosed that the SFI leader passed the exam without appearing in it. He was critical of the college authorities for committing such a serious error in the mark list. As it was live, I had no opportunity to cross-check the allegation. However, I mentioned that it was an allegation by the KSU leader, and that it needed to be investigated,” she said.
KUWJ president MV Vineetha and secretary R Kiran Babu pointed out that the reporter never interfered in the college affairs or hobnobbed with the principal, teachers or KSU leaders to target Arsho.
“She went there with a different reporting assignment, and, by chance, she also had to report this controversy,” they said.
They said journalists in Kerala would jointly resist such moves to silence voices of dissent.
For a long time, Asianet — considered a vocal and independent critic of the ruling establishments in the state — has been a target of the CPI(M) in Kerala.
Vinu V John of Asianet
A recently registered case against three of the channel’s journalists under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Indian Penal Code, accusing them of broadcasting fake news using a minor girl, is pending investigation.
In the meantime, the party had used SFI cadres to occupy the regional office of Asianet in Kochi and place a banner claiming that the channel’s reportage was a willful distortion of facts.
Then the government used its police force to conduct an hours-long search at another regional office in Kozhikode.
A criminal case was filed recently against the channel’s senior news anchor Vinu V John for threatening and intimidation after his scathing observations on CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member Elamaram Kareem for facilitating violence under cover of a bandh called by the party’s trade union.
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