The Kerala police register conspiracy cases against journalists who report on protests by Opposition political outlets.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan interacts with police officers. (South First)
This June, Kerala police arrested Akhila Nandakumar, a reporter for the popular Malayalam television channel Asianet, along with four other people for criminal conspiracy, forgery, and defamation.
The arrest came after she broadcast from the city’s Government Maharaja’s College about how SFI state secretary PM Arsho appeared on the list of students who passed the third semester of MA Archaeology without showing up for exams.
Despite clearly attributing the source to allegations raised by the Congress student wing, the Kerala Students’ Union (KSU), she was booked.
The college authorities gave a new dimension to the story by acknowledging before Akhila’s camera that Arsho’s clearing of the semester was a technical error.
Akhila was listed as the fifth accused after Archaeology Department coordinator Vinod Kumar, college Principal V S Joy, KSU state president Aloshious Xavier, and KSU’s college unit leader Fazil CA.
Akhila Nandakumar. (Sourced)
They were booked under IPC Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 465 (forgery), and 469 (forgery on purpose of harming reputation), and Sections 500 (defamation) and 120 (o) of the Kerala Police Act (causing, through any means of communication, a nuisance of himself to any person by repeated or undesirable or anonymous call, letter, writing, message, email, or through a messenger).
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his Cabinet justified the police action despite the issue inviting national attention as a blatant misuse of power by police to appease leaders of SFI, the student wing of Kerala’s ruling CPI(M), which often creates headlines for the wrong reasons.
Vijayan even said the police would not remain mere spectators if journalists colluded with political opponents of the CPI(M) to accuse the party and its government.
However, in another four months, police dropped the journalist’s name from the FIR, who had been controversially booked under pressure from the student leader with questionable credentials.
The crime branch wing of state police that investigated the case informed the magistrate’s court in Ernakulam that it couldn’t find any evidence against the reporter.
Now, Akhila is heaving a sigh of relief despite being painted in villainous colours by the social media handles of CPI(M), accusing her of being a stooge of the Congress-led opposition UDF.
While Akhila’s case remains a classic example of how the ruling Left party in Kerala stifles media freedom, the Pinarayi Vijayan government is least bothered about the allegations against it, including the intolerance to criticism and extreme disregard for the right to dissent.
Criminal intimidation by the police continues to remain the most powerful weapon of the government to target journalists and media houses that maintain a critical approach towards the government.
Despite uproars, wilful attempts to target the media have been initiated after a brief lull, especially after the conclusion of the much-hyped Nava Kerala Sadas of the Chief Minister and his Cabinet.
On Wednesday, 27 December, Thiruvananthapuram City Police served summons on three mediapersons, accusing them of trespassing into the state DGP’s official residence to report the protest march organised by Mahila Morcha activists on 16 December.
Journalist Reshmi Kartika and cameraperson Nitin Raj are from Janam TV, while the third is Anil Gopi, a cameraman with Janmabhumi. Both Janam and Janmabhumi are pro-BJP media establishments in Kerala.
The police had told them to appear at the Museum Police Station on Friday, 29 December, at 11 am, as part of the investigation, and they would be interrogated the same day. The journalists were charged with criminal trespass.
The police allegation is that they barged into the compound, along with Mahila Morcha leaders who were protesting against a poorly-conducted police investigation into a rare case in the Idukki district as part of a conspiracy to defame the government.
This incident comes a week after Vinitha VG, a reporter for the television news channel 24 News, was arraigned as an accused by Ernakulam rural police in a case registered in connection with Kerala Students’ Union (KSU) activists hurling shoes at the Nava Kerala Sadas bus and a security escort vehicle of the Chief Minister.
She was charged with criminal conspiracy, saying that she reached the incident spot as part of a conspiracy to ensure publicity for the protestors.
Vinitha VG. (Supplied)
Vinitha was prosecuted as the fifth accused and issued a notice to appear before the police for interrogation. KSU state office-bearer Basil P and activists Devakumar T, Jibin Mathew, and Jaiden Johnson are the other four accused in the case.
“She had prior information about the plan to hurl shoes at the Nava Kerala Sadas bus that carried the Chief Minister and his Cabinet members with highest security. She was duty-bound to alert law enforcement about it,” said the Chief Minister, when asked about the rationale behind registering the case.
Interestingly, the police had charged the other accused in the case under IPC Sections 283 (danger or obstruction in a public way or line of navigation), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) apart from 308 (attempt to culpable homicide).
The incident occurred near Odakkali within the Kuruppampady police station limits on 10 December during the district leg of the Nava Kerala Sadas. While one shoe hit the bus, the other landed on the windscreen of the security escort vehicle.
According to MV Vineetha and R Kiran Babu, president and general secretary, respectively, of Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), the two consecutive actions targeting mediapersons remain classic examples of encroachment on the freedom of the press and flagrant abuse of power. They had demanded the early withdrawal of the cases and the correction of the mistake.
The Thiruvananthapuram Press Club has also demanded that the state police be ready to correct the error by withdrawing the notices and excluding the journalists from the criminal cases charged against them.
Mediapersons across the state are finding these developments the latest among those that evolved by the police to please the state’s ruling dispensation and its leaders, including ministers, who consider journalists arch-rivals and their reports to be a major threat to the government.
The CPI(M)’s touchiness over critical reporting and intimidation of non-complying journalists are ostensible in Kerala, despite the party’s national leaders, Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat, mobilising public opinion against the BJP-RSS attempts to gag-free and independent media, the fourth pillar of a democracy.
Hardly six months have passed since Asianet‘s news anchor Abgeoth Varghese received a call from a police station in Thiruvananthapuram. He was asked to present himself to make a statement regarding a news item he had presented almost three years ago.
When the summons snowballed into a controversy, the police explained that Varghese was not an accused but a witness in a case filed by solar scam accused Saritha S Nair against the then-KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran, who made some observations about her in a news conference.
“All television channels, online media, and newspapers in Kerala carried the news item after the press conference. Other than reading out the report by the reporter concerned, I have done nothing special,” Varghese told South First.
“It’s dubious that they singled me out to record the statement much later. They explained that I am a witness only after the summons became a controversy,” he added, though he remains clueless about the case’s progress in the last six months.
In a joint operation on 4 April, Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), local police, and central intelligence agencies arrested Shahrukh Saifi, accused of arson aboard the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express near Elanthur in Kozhikode.
Three people were killed in the incident. The ATS said Saifi had confessed to the crime. He was handed over to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) from Kerala. The team took him back by road in a hired taxi, allegedly without proper security arrangements.
A reporting team of Mathrubhumi News came to know about the transportation of the accused after the taxi got a flat tyre on the Kannur bypass. The news team rushed to the scene, took visuals, and aired a story highlighting the casual manner in which the accused was being shifted.
Within days, the police slapped criminal cases against the reporter Felix Fernandes, cameraperson Shabu Chanthappura, and driver Anfal for obstructing the official duty of a criminal investigation team, destroying evidence, trespassing, intimidating, and attempting to create unrest.
Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurating the outreach programme in Manjeswar. (Supplied)
Further actions are pending, but the phones seized from the team are still with the police. “See how things are unfolding in present-day Kerala. The journalists must reach the scene and report from there. Nobody obstructed the duty of the police team, which was supposed to ensure alternative vehicles and additional security,” said Vinitha when contacted by the South First.
According to sources in the Home Department, instructions have already been passed to the police to target journalists whose reports put the government in an awkward situation. And the police are acting accordingly.
A journalist who reported on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s travel route is facing a probe. The reporter got the information after a senior police officer, ignorant of the risks involved, forwarded the itinerary to the journalist over WhatsApp. Attempts are now on to save the officer.
A journalist who reported a POCSO case from Azhiyoor in Kozhikode, also faces police action for obstructing a public servant from discharging his duty. The journalist had published a report criticising the police for releasing the accused, who was involved in a major synthetic drug trafficking case using minor girls as carriers.
In another instance, the Crime Branch served a notice on Malayala Manorama’s Special Correspondent Jayachandran Elangath after he reported alleged corruption and irregularities in recruiting employees in the public sector unit, the Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited.
The charge is that he caused disrespect to the company among the general public.
A reporter and cameraperson of Asianet News in Pathanamthitta were charged for attempting to create unrest by pasting posters against Health Minister Veena George in May this year. The case against them was dropped after a member of the religious group confessed to putting up the posters of his own volition.
The minister and the accused hail from the same community, and a church-related feud was behind the poster campaign. A former journalist, George, accused the media team of committing the crime.
The leaders’ intolerance of independent media has trickled down to the “cyber comrades”—CPI (M) cadres and sympathisers active on social media. Cybercomrades singling out and targeting journalists on social media platforms are rising in the state.
Incidentally, they seldom take the legal route against journalists they — or their political masters — consider peddling fake news.
Shajan Skariah, the chief editor and managing director of the Malayalam news portal Marunadan Malayali, is now the prime target of the cyber comrades. The portal has been accused of carrying flimsy and unsubstantiated reports targeting CPI(M) leaders and their family members, especially Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
But instead of taking legal recourse against manipulated stories, the cyber comrades encourage mob violence against Skariah, who was recently abused even at Gatwick Airport in the UK.
CPI(M) social media users celebrated the video of the abuse, saying that Skrariah was assaulted in the airport by a party supporter for his yellow journalism.
Leading the cyber comrades, Nilambur MLA PV Anvar congratulated the abuser and warned of such incidents if Skaraiah continued putting out fake and unsubstantiated news. Skaraiah has been facing defamation cases in several courts across the country. Chairman and Managing Director of LuLu Group MA Yusuff Ali and movie star Prithviraj Sukumar are among those who have filed cases against him.
He accused the CPI(M) cyber wing of mass reporting against the social media pages of his portal, resulting in the hiding of key content.
Even those who have reservations about Skariah’s journalism felt the physical attack, intimidation, mass reporting, and showering abuses on him and his family members were symptoms of growing intolerance in Kerala.
Asianet News — associated with BJP MP and union minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar — is the most targeted television channel in Kerala. A criminal case is pending against its Associate Editor Vinu V John, after he strongly criticised CPI(M)’s Rajya Sabha member Elamaram Kareem on air for backing violence during a bandh. The Home Department refused clearance when John applied to renew his passport.
Vijayan in his Nava Kerala Bus. (Supplied)
Asianet’s Executive Editor Sindhu Sooryakumar, Regional Editor Shajahan Kaliyath, and Reporter Nofal Bin Yusuf are facing criminal proceedings for allegedly creating fake videos using a minor girl to campaign against the government’s anti-narcotics drive.
Anvar, a CPI (M)-supported independent MLA, was at the forefront of the campaign against the three journalists, widely perceived as a political vendetta rather than an objective news analysis.
When Malayala Manorama pointed out certain lapses related to the organisation of the Loka Kerala Sabha in New York in May, Vijayan came out singling out the newspaper and launching a scathing attack. He said the newspaper owners were using the money from their rubber business to show the government in a poor light.
When contacted by South First, film actor and social observer Joy Mathew said he is the subject of large-scale social media vilification after criticising the insensitivity of CPI(M) bosses.
“Now, the cyber cadres falsely accuse me of talking nonsense under the influence of narcotics. This is worrisome as Left Party cadres share the same intolerance as their Sangh Parivar counterparts,” Mathew said.
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