“Janjwar” editor, Ajay Prakash said that crimes against Dalits are on the rise under the BJP regime in Uttarakhand. “Dalits are facing discrimination in every sphere of life. The Uttarakhand Police has arrested Ram for bringing out an inconvenient truth”, he said. The Police claimed that two videos shot by Kishore and published by “Janjwar” were found to have objectionable content. Kishore Ram was asking caste related questions when he was reporting on the polls, alleged police. Ajay said that “the cases in which Ram has been arrested are different from each other.” Pertinently, it is the second case filed by the Uttarakhand police against “Janjwar” within 15 days. Ajay Prakash told NH that his vehicle was apprehended by the police a fortnight ago when he was on an assignment in the state. He alleged that the Uttarakhand police has tried to “seize” his car and deploy it at poll duty. “When I resisted, they misbehaved with me and filed a case against me,” said Ajay Prakash. In a letter written to the Election Commission, Prakash asked the statutory body to intervene. Meanwhile, Supreme Court advocate Raveendra Gadhiya called it an “attack on freedom of the fourth pillar of democracy – the press.” Two years ago in 2020, Uttarakhand Police had arrested journalist Rajiv Nayan Bahuguna and BBC correspondent Dilnawaz Pasha, in separate incidents. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliates the Indian Journalists’ Union (IJU) and the National Union of Journalists (India) (NUJ-I) had then condemned the Uttarakhand Police and demanded an investigation into the attack on journalists.
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