Tripura Police must drop ‘terror investigation’ into journalists: global media watchdog demands

New Delhi, 14 Nov 2021 [Fik/News Sources]: “Police in the Indian state of Tripura must immediately drop a terror investigation into journalists for their social media posts about anti-Muslim violence during the last week of October,” the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Friday.

CPJ, which is a New York-based media watchdog, criticised the Tripura Police for registering a case against 102 social media accounts on charges of “objectionable news items/statements”.

It has identified five of the 102 accounts as belonging to journalists. The journalists under police scrutiny are Maktoob’s Meer Faisal, freelance journalist Sartaj Alam, Newsclick’s senior editor Shyam Meera Singh, freelance journalist Arif Shah and London-based monthly newspaper Byline Times’s global correspondent C.J. Werleman.

“Indian police in Tripura need to accept that reporting on sectarian violence, on Twitter or elsewhere, is a normal activity for journalists and hardly a crime,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “The police must stop harassing the journalists for doing their job and drop the terror investigations immediately.”

The police probe comes after various fact-finding teams pointed out the police were complicit in controlling the anti-Muslim violence in Tripura.

The probe has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The court has agreed to hear a petition filed against notices issued to lawyers, journalists and activists.