In a shocking violation of human rights and press freedom, founder-editor of Republic TV Arnab Goswami was man-handled and arrested from his residence earlier today by a large team of Mumbai Police on an ‘abetment to suicide’ charge in an old 2018 case that was already closed as per reports.
Goswami has alleged that the Mumbai police officials physically assaulted him and his family including his mother-in-law and father-in-law, son and wife. Video played out on Republic TV shows Arnab being grabbed by a policeman.
Arnab Goswami says that Mumbai Police physically assaulted his mother-in-law and father-in-law, son and wife. Mumbai police also assaulted Arnab Goswami as per video played out on Republic TV
(Screenshot of Republic TV) pic.twitter.com/kFaDoopAAh— ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2020
#BREAKING | Mumbai Police at Arnab Goswami's residence amid witch-hunt against Republic Media Network; Tune in for #LIVE updates #ArnabGoswami #Republic https://t.co/rGQJsiKgt2 pic.twitter.com/htDkzXyprc
— Republic (@republic) November 4, 2020
According to Republic TV, the Mumbai Police team didn’t have proper summons, documents or court papers. Other Republic TV employees were barred from entering Arnab’s residence and all entry and exit points were sealed.
Talking to Zee Media, CIU Inspector Sachin Vaje said that Arnab has been arrested under Section 306 (Abetment of suicide) and Section 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of IPC. He is reportedly being taken to Raigad police station for questioning.
Arnab Goswami and his channel have been in the cross-hairs of the volatile, less than a year old MVA govt, already under fire for poor handling of Covid pandemic, inaction in Palghar sadhus lynching and host of other issues.
Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena ministers and workers have all filed cases against Arnab or spoken out against him. Mumbai Police, under its controversial, torture-accused Commissioner Param Bir Singh, has been conducting what many have called a witch-hunt against the channel.  Arnab’s arrest comes just a day after Param Bir Singh had called Arnab ‘the biggest hawala’ operator in the city of Mumbai.
Shockingly, most media outlets have maintained an eerie silence over this brutal treatment & hounding of a senior journalist. The below statement by an ‘economics’ journalist who has worked with The Hindu, Economic Times, India Today sums up the Lutyens’ mainstream journalism world’s utter disregard for those who refuse to toe their line and break free of the herd –
Calm down please. We'll speak for press freedom, as we always do, where journalists are concerned. Arnab, however, can by no stretch of imagination be called a journalist. https://t.co/tNFK2pENST
— Puja Mehra (@pujamehra) November 4, 2020
The Editor’s Guild of India, a Lutyens media body currently led by veteran journalist Seema Mustafa, has issued a soft statement calling for Maharashtra government to treat Arnab ‘fairly’ while expressing ‘shock and condemnation’ over his ‘sudden’ arrest. The last chief of the Editor’s Guild, Shekhar Gupta, actually ran an article by the vicious Hindu-basher Shivam Vij on his portal The Print that urged Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray to ‘go after’ Arnab. In the article, Vij praises Uddhav as a “balanced, serious, governance-oriented chief minister”, calls him a ‘liberal’ leader under whom “Shiv Sena has given up up on anti-Muslim politics, and is limiting itself to non-violent Marathi identity politics.”
For the record, Shiv Sena has been demonstrating this ‘non-violence’ on hapless Hindus in the state such as 62-year-old retired Navy officer Madan Sharma, who was attacked by four Shiv Sena hooligans for forwarding a cartoon on WhatsApp (WA); or Sameet Thakkar who was dragged to court by the police with a rope tied to his hands and face under a shroud for tweets where he allegedly called the CM ‘powerless’ (a play on words during a long power outage), ‘modern-day Aurangzeb’, and his son Aditya as ‘Baby Penguin‘; or Hiraman Tiwari who was assaulted and tonsured by Sena goons for a social media post against the CM when he compared Delhi police action against Jamia Nagar rioters with Jallianwala Bagh massacre; or shop owners whose shops were vandalised by a mob led by a Shiv Sena MLA for posts against MVA leaders; or the govt. employee who was smeared with black ink for calling Uddhav ‘Nalayak’ (useless) in a social media post.
So tell us again – is Shivam Vij the charlatan, or Shekhar Gupta who gives him a platform to spew his baseless anti-Hindu venom and calls to fascism?
One ray of hope in the climate of fear and oppression created by the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena alliance is a statement by the Union Home Minister –
Congress and its allies have shamed democracy once again.
Blatant misuse of state power against Republic TV & Arnab Goswami is an attack on individual freedom and the 4th pillar of democracy.
It reminds us of the Emergency. This attack on free press must be and WILL BE OPPOSED.
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 4, 2020
Anti-Hindu and divisive, casteist, corrupt forces have had a free run for so long in the country, and entrenched themselves so deeply in our institutions, that they believe they have complete immunity whatever their actions. For its own good and to remain credible in the eyes of citizens, the Central government has to disabuse these elements of such notions.
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