An FIR has been filed against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and six journalists including Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod K Jose, Mrinal Pande and others for allegedly "misreporting" and "spreading disharmony" on Republic Day when a farmers tractor rally turned violent in Delhi.
FIR was lodged on Thursday stating that they had spread fake news relating to the death of a framer during Republic Day mayhem. All of them will face charges including sedition, criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity under the Indian Penal Code.
The complaint was registered by a resident of Noida, Arpit Mishra who alleged that social media posts by Mr Throor and the other journalists claiming that a farmer was shot dead by the Delhi police had resulted in the Red Fort siege and the rampage during the tractor march.
The FIR also names Zafar Agha, the Group Editor-in-Chief of National Herald, and Ananth Nath, the Editor of Caravan.
"Yes, the FIR has been filed," a senior police officer in Noida told news agency PTI.
Thousands of protesting farmers clashed with the police, attacked them with sticks and swords during the tractor rally in protest against new farm laws and entered the historic monument, Red Fort, vandalising property and hoisting religious flags on the dome of the fort.
The journalists and politicians have been booked under sections:-
- 153A [Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony]
- 153B [Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration]
- 295A [Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs]
- 298 [Uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person]
- 504 [Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace]
- 506 [Criminal Intimidation]
- 505(2) [Statements conducing to public mischief]
- 124-A [Sedition]
- 34 [Acts did by several persons in furtherance of common intention]
- 120-B [Punishment of criminal conspiracy] of the Indian Penal Code and section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
On the other hand, India Today on Thursday took Rajdeep Sardesai, its Consulting Editor, off-air for two weeks and also deducted one month of his salary for spreading false news.
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Rajdeep on January 26 had tweeted that a farmer was shot dead by the Delhi police during the tractor rally.
However, the Delhi police said that the farmer died in an accident when he came under the tractor which he was driving rashly. The police later released a video in which the farmer was seen losing control of his tractor and how it overturned.