Karnataka cops book journalist for report on alleged sexual assault by a seer's brother

The journalist alleged that he was booked by the Chitradurga cyber-crime police on the insistence of a prominent religious leader.
Karnataka police
Karnataka police

A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against an independent journalist in Karnataka for his reportage on the brother of Muruga Mutt Swamiji Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, MG Doreswamy. The mutt, located in Chitradurga, belongs to the Lingayat sect. Doreswamy is the CEO of the Sri Jagadguru Murugharajendra Vidyapeetha, a body which manages educational and cultural institutions under the mutt.

A woman who used to visit the mutt frequently had filed a complaint against the pontiff's brother on January 16, accusing him of sexual misconduct and rape. She also alleged that he had repeatedly blackmailed her and threatened her against filing a police complaint. Doreswamy had applied for bail but a court on February 5, rejected his bail plea.

On February 6, G Mahantesh had written about the pontiff’s brother, who was accused of the heinous crimes. The report was published with relevant documents pertaining to the case. However, a police complaint was soon filed against Mahantesh by the mutt.

Mahantesh alleged that it was on the insistence of the pontiff, that the police filed the case against him. He has been booked under sections 505(1) (publishing or circulation of rumours to incite a party or community) and 507 (anonymous criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides Section 66D (cheating using a computer) of the Information Technology (IT) Act by the Chitradurga cyber-crime police.

When TNM contacted Mahantesh, he said, “I had written an article based on official documents, like the copy of the FIR and the court judgment. Days later, after the article was published, I was falsely accused of cheating and intimidating the religious leader. This is quashing the rights of the press.”

Despite having had a career spanning over two decades, with multiple investigative stories that exposed corruption in the Karnataka Lokayukta and unearthed misuse of office by a Chief Minister's media secretary who held the rank of a cabinet minister, the FIR names him as a ‘mysterious’ person.

Mahantesh said that independent news houses and journalists have been constantly getting targeted for their work. The journalist has written to the Press Council of India expressing his grievance. Filing of FIR, he said in his letter, “is nothing but an attempt to stifle my spirit of independent journalism by vested interests, violate the basic fundamental rights such as the right to expression, speech as well as my right to occupation that are enshrined in the Constitution of India.”

He added that it was “an assault on the freedom of media to engage itself in an atmosphere devoid of unnecessary pressures, whims and fancies of vested interests.”

In his letter to Chairman Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad, he further wrote that such FIRs being filed across the nation were an attempt at ‘strangulating’ journalism and independent journalists like him. He urged the council to intervene in this matter.

Senior journalists like Sugata Srinivasaraju and advocate Vinay Sreenivasa have tweeted in his support. In an elaborate thread on Twitter, Srinivasaraju explained what had transpired, while Vinay, sharing a copy of the FIR, said that the allegations are “baseless”.

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