A police team from Chhattisgarh reached Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad town on Tuesday, July 5, to arrest a TV news anchor from his home for playing a doctored clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. However, he was later taken into custody by Noida police instead. Both the teams, one from BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and the other from Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, landed at Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan's home in Ghaziabad's Indirapuram area at the same time. Rohit Ranjan was picked up from his home for questioning on Tuesday morning by a team of Noida Sector 20 police station in connection with an FIR lodged under IPC 505 (public mischief), on a complaint by his own channel over a doctored video played during his show on July 1. In Raipur, Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal told PTI that a case was registered against Ranjan and others of Zee News on Sunday for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups and outraging religious feelings of people based on the complaint of Congress MLA Devendra Yadav.
Yadav said in his complaint that a video in which Rahul Gandhi described those attacking his Wayanad office as “children” and said he had no ill-will against them, was "mischievously" used by the TV channel on July 1 to suggest he was forgiving the killers of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal. As drama unfolded outside Ranjan's home with the police forces of two states ready to arrest the anchor, a senior Ghaziabad police officer told PTI that the local city police were not involved in the case.
Ranjan spoke out on Twitter in a post in Hindi, questioning the legality of the Chhattisgarh police arresting him. “Chhattisgarh Police is standing outside my house to arrest me without informing the local police, is it legal?,” the Zee News anchor asked and tagged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the state's police in the post. In its response, the Raipur police said, “There is no such rule to inform. Still, now they are informed. Police team has shown you the court's warrant of arrest. You should in fact cooperate, join in the investigation and put your defence in court.”
Chhattisgarh police was not able to arrest him but said it had shown him the arrest warrant and sought his cooperation in the probe. The FIR against Ranjan has been filed in Raipur.
The video under scanner is that of Rahul Gandhi’s conversation with mediapersons in his Wayanad office, on Friday, July 1. Speaking of the vandalisation of his Wayanad office allegedly by members of SFI, Rahul Gandhi said that they were “children” and it need not be made into a big deal. However, the video was doctored and reported as if the comment was made regarding the Udaipur killing.
The Rajasthan police had registered an FIR against Rohit Ranjan and BJP national spokesperson Rajyavardhan Rathore and others, under sections 504 (intentional insult), 505 (criminal intimidation), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, etc.), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
On July 2, a day after the video was aired, Ranjan had apologized during his TV show for mistakenly playing Gandhi's statement out of context by linking it with the Udaipur murder case. It was a human error for which our team is apologetic. We apologise for it, he had tweeted in Hindi.
Meanwhile, sections of people on social media have condemned the arrest of Rohit, contending that his actions do not warrant the harsh punishment of arrest. “Handcuff-happy cops—this time of @ChhattisgarhCMO—again arrest under 153A, in contempt of CrPC+SC orders protecting accused if charge carries 3yrs max. @irohitr airing doctored video is bad journalism. Reprehensible. But at best it amounts to defamation RG can pursue, not arrest,” Sidharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire, said.