The manner in which the Kerala Police on Saturday registered a case against a female TV reporter and four others, including a college principal, based on a complaint filed by the state secretary of the SFI has received widespread condemnation.
The case was registered after SFI state secretary P.M. Arsho filed a complaint alleging that a conspiracy was hatched to defame him by reporting a ‘false’ news.
Those who have been accused include the principal of the Government Maharaja’s College, a professor, and three others.
Akhila Nandakumar, a television journalist, is the fifth accused and the charge against her is that she was part of the conspiracy and came to the college to report the news against Arsho.
Trouble has been brewing at the Maharaja’s College ever since a report surfaced that former SFI leader K. Vidya was caught red-handed after a teacher from the Government College in Wayanad got in touch with the principal of Maharaja’s College in Ernakulam seeking clarifications if Vidya was employed as a guest lecturer during 2018-19 and 2020-21.
The principal of Maharaja’s College, after verification, realised that there was no one employed in the Malayalam department as guest lecturer for the past one decade.
Along with this news came pictures of Vidya and Arsho, and also a news which was aired that revealed a mark list of Arsho, who is an MA archeology student at the Maharaja’s College, which said that he passed a semester examination, but the mark list showed serious errors.
Soon came the news that it was an error on the part of the National Informatics Centre, which prepared the list.
But Arsho in his complaint said that it was done following a conspiracy and this was first taken up by the student’s wing of the Congress party – KSU – and Akhila had reported this.
The Kerala Union of Working Journalists and the Trivandrum Press Club have strongly condemned the police action of registering a case against the reporter, terming it as something “unheard” of.
Congress legislator and former Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said that he fails to understand what’s happening in Kerala.
“Strange things are happening as a journalist has been indicted because she did her job. This is not at all acceptable,” Chennithala said.
20230611-002004
