Women journalists of news portal detained for reporting on alleged religious vandalism in Tripura

New Delhi, November 15

The Assam Police has booked two women journalists for reporting on alleged religious vandalism in Tripura. They were also detained by the Assam Police at Nilambazaar in Karimganj district.

The FIR has been against Samriddhi K Sakunia and Swarna Jha, based on a complaint by local Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists. They have been booked under sections relating to spreading communal disharmony, committing insult with the intent of provoking breach of peace and criminal conspiracy.

In a tweet, Sakunia wrote, “We have been detained at the Nilambazar police station, Karimganj, Assam. We were informed by the officer-in-charge of Nilambazar PS that SP of Gomti District gave the orders for our detention.”

The police claimed that a few videos posted by the journalists on social media had claimed that a prayer hall was burnt in Gomati district and a copy of the Quaran was damaged. The videos are suspected to have been “doctored”.

In a tweet on November 11, Sakunia had written, “#Tripuraviolence Darga Bazaar: On 19th October at around 2:30 am, some unidentified people burnt down the mosque in Darga Bazaar area. People in the neighborhood are very upset with the fact that now they don’t have any place nearby to go and pray There’s no other masjid nearby.”

She also posted the video claiming that the prayer hall was burnt and a copy of the Quran was damaged.

A press release issued from the office of Tripura Police Director General VS Yadav claimed that the posts by Sakunia were complicit in fabricating facts and promoting a sense of hatred between communities.

“In this social media post, she posted a video of her visit to the half burned prayer hall damaged by mischievous fire in the house of one Rahamat Ali of Hurijala, PS Kakraban on 11/11/2021 try to claim that one holy Quran was burned in the incident occurred in the night of 19/10/2021 which refers to Kakraban PS Case No. 74/2021 U/S 436 IPC. This is contrary to the findings so far revealed in course of investigation as presence of no such damaged books/documents was brought to the notice of investigating officer and fire service staff who extinguished the fire,” the police statement said.

The statement further stated that a team of lawyers, who visited the state earlier, had made a similar claim with a “questionable photograph”. It added that people with “vested interests” were trying to flare up communal tension in the state.
The Twitter profiles of the two journalists state that they work with HW News Network.

An official statement from HW News Network put out on social media said, “HW News Network Journalists Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha have been detained by Assam Police on their way to Silchar. Assam Police has said that they don’t have any case against our journalists but Tripura Police asked them to detain them.”

The Tripura Police, in a tweet, has denied that cops were deployed outside the journalists’ hotel. “…neither any police personnel was deployed outside their hotel nor they were restrained from moving out. Police party went to hotel to serve the legal notice as required under investigation of any case. The police party left after serving the notice,” the tweet read.

A copy of the FIR posted on Twitter by the journalists showed the complainant was one Kanchan Das of Kumarghat who claimed as “part of criminal conspiracy to destroy the communal harmony in Tripura as well as to malign the VHP and Tripura government, the accused intentionally imparted the name of VHP in that incident which could effect the harmony in between Hindu and Muslim community”.

The women journalist also stated on social media that the police wanted to grab their written diaries, notebooks and recordings to check what they had been reporting. The police claimed they were asked to hold talks with police yet they moved towards the border to go to Assam where they were detained.

The two journalists are in custody of the police station. The Editors Guild of India demanded immediate release of the women journalists.