UP Police e book Tharoor, six journalists for sedition

Uttar Pradesh Police Thursday lodged an FIR towards Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and several other journalists, together with India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai, National Herald’s Mrinal Pandey, Zafar Agha of Qaumi Awaz, and The Caravan’s Anant Nath and Vinod Jose, for allegedly spreading misinformation on the farmers’ tractor rally on January 26.
The FIR has been lodged below 11 IPC sections, together with Section 124A (sedition), 153-A (selling enmity between teams), part 295A (deliberate and malicious act meant to outrage spiritual emotions), Section 504 (intentional insult), Section 506 (prison intimidation) and Section 120B (prison conspiracy to commit offence punishable by loss of life).
It has been lodged towards eight individuals: Tharoor; Sardesai, who’s consulting editor; Pande, group editorial advisor; Jose, government editor; Caravan editor Anant Nath; its editor-publisher Paresh Nath, editor-in-chief of Qaumi Awaz Zafar Agha and one unnamed individual. The grievance was filed by one Arpit Mishra.
The FIR says the accused acted in “prejudice”, which put nationwide security and other people’s lives in jeopardy. “These people deliberately made malicious, offensive, misleading and provocative statements, and tweeted…that police killed a protesting tractor driver,” it alleged. The driver was killed when his tractor toppled over and postmortem had dominated out any bullet accidents.
The FIR alleges that the “false information” was publicised as a part of a “planned conspiracy”. It says, “This was done with the malafide intent so that riots take place at a large scale and tensions are created between different communities.” It says this was additionally achieved for “personal and political gains” of the accused.
“Due to the atmosphere created by their tweets, protesters reached the Lal Qila and hoisted religious and other flags. The named persons are wholly responsible for this unfortunate incident in India’s history,” it alleges.
The FIR says the tweets have been made to “malign the image of the police and armed forces”.
Anant Nath, Paresh Nath, Sardesai and Pande didn’t reply to feedback. Jose stated, “Our lawyers are looking into it. Our reporters were on the ground, and had eyewitness on camera.”
“I heard about it. Unless I speak to my legal people I can’t comment,” Zafar Agha stated. Tharoor declined to remark.
“An FIR was filed for alleged sedition regarding content posted by some persons. No arrests have been made. We are investigating the allegations,” SHO, Noida Sector 20 police station, Rakesh Kumar Singh stated.