By PTI
NOIDA: The news anchor arrested and released on bail over a misleading video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was initially not named an accused in the FIR lodged by Uttar Pradesh’s Noida police just minutes before they reached his home in Ghaziabad.
His name was later added as the third accused in the FIR lodged at Noida Sector-20 police station under IPC section 505(2).
However, the other two accused, a senior producer and a trainee producer, who were named in the FIR initially are yet to be questioned, a Noida police officer told PTI on Wednesday.
Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan was whisked away Tuesday morning by police in BJP-run Uttar Pradesh, virtually thwarting his arrest by a team from the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh that had landed at his home a few hours earlier.
“He was picked up for questioning in connection with our investigation into the case lodged at Sector-20 police station. His name was added in the FIR later. He was arrested on the basis of evidence. But the offence was bailable so he was granted bail from the police station,” Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Ranvijay Singh told reporters.
The FIR registered against the journalist in Chhattisgarh lists more sections of the law compared to those mentioned in the Noida FIR, lodged on the basis of a complaint by Zee Media itself.
The Noida-based television channel has blamed two producers for “knowingly and intentionally” using a statement by Gandhi out of context and said they have been sacked for this.
The FIR was lodged at the Noida police station at 8.33 am and the anchor picked up from Ghaziabad around 9 am, according to the official document seen by PTI.
While the police team from Raipur in Chhattisgarh reached Ranjan’s Indirapuram home around 5.30 am on Tuesday, he was taken into custody first by the Ghaziabad police and then by the Noida police, which had lodged an FIR under IPC section 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill will between classes).
The FIR was registered on a complaint by V R Venkatraman, an authorised representative for Zee Media Corporation Limited (ZMCL), two days earlier.
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It named senior producer Narinder Singh and trainee producer Bikash Kumar Jha as those responsible.
The complainant said Rahul Gandhi’s video statement was on the vandalisation of his office in Wayanad, Kerala.
But due tooversight and inadvertence it was presented out of context on the show, DNA, he said.
Against the aforesaid negligence, the company conducted an internal inquiry and terminated the services of Mr.
Narinder Singh and Bikash Kumar Jha, who were found responsible for the aforesaid negligence, he added.
However, in the given circumstances , the company has a reasonable belief and suspicion that the aforesaid negligence and dereliction of duties may have been committed by Mr.
Bikash Kumar Jha and Mr. Narinder Singh knowingly and intentionally in connivance with each other, the complaint said.
While his phone has been switched off since Tuesday, PTI’s text messages to the TV anchor for his response remained unanswered.
The Noida police also refuted allegations of non-cooperation by their Chhattisgarh counterparts, who stayed put in the national capital region for a second day Wednesday to trace Ranjan.
The Supreme Court is set to hear on Thursday the journalist plea for protection against arrest in the case.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Wednesday alleged that the police in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh were trying to protect TV news anchor Rohit Ranjan, who is accused of playing a doctored clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
His statement comes amid the Chhattisgarh police’s allegation that their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh were no cooperating with them in this case.
The Chhattisgarh police have summoned Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan and some of his colleagues for probe into allegations of airing a doctored video of Rahul Gandhi.
ALSO READ | SC to hear Rohit Ranjan’s plea on Thursday, Raipur police fails to service arrest warrant yet again
A team of the Chhattisgarh police on Wednesday stayed put in the national capital region for a second day as it continued its search with an arrest warrant for Ranjan.
The policemen went to the TV anchor’s home in Ghaziabad in the morning and later to his office in Noida Film City, officials said.
A case was registered against Ranjan and others at Zee News on Sunday at Civil Lines Police station in Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups and outraging religious feelings of people, based on a complaint by Congress MLA Devendra Yadav, Raipur’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Prashant Agrawal said.
Talking to reporters here at the helipad in Police Lines, chief minister Baghel said, “Uttar Pradesh Police is trying to protect the accused. They should have cooperated with Raipur police.”
Hitting out at the BJP, Baghel alleged, “The BJP does not honour court orders (issued against Ranjan by a Chhattisgarh court).
In Nupur Sharma case, the way BJP supporters trolled the Supreme Court observations, it shows they (BJP leaders) do not believe in the court and want to weaken the Constitution. They just follow their own agenda.”
The SSP had on Tuesday claimed that the Noida police obstructed Ranjan’s arrest procedure by taking him away with them.
The Raipur district police had gone to Ranjan’s home in Indirapuram area near Delhi on Tuesday early morning, but he was instead arrested by the Noida police who released him on bail later in the night.
“The Noida police, who released him on bail, should have informed the Raipur police, as the team had gone to Sector-20 police station (in Noida) on Tuesday, asking for the whereabouts of the accused. They did not tell us anything about him and late Tuesday evening released a press note stating that he is released on bail. Now, he is absconding,” Agrawal alleged.
In his complaint against Ranjan, Yadav alleged that a video, in which Rahul Gandhi described those attacking his Wayanad office as children and said he had no ill-will against them, was “mischievously” used by the TV channel on July 1 to suggest he was forgiving the killers of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal.
Yadav, who represents Bhilai Nagar constituency in Chhattisgarh, has accused the director and chairman of Zee News and its chief executive officer of conspiring to spread fabricated and fake news against Gandhi in a bid to incite communal riots and disturb social harmony, the official said.
Ranjan and others were booked under various IPC sections, including 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 467 (forgery), 469 (forgery to harm reputation) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), the SSP said.
On July 2, a day after the video was aired, Ranjan had apologised for mistakenly playing Gandhi’s statement on vandalisation of his Wayanad office out of context by linking it with the Udaipur murder case.
“It was a human error for which our team is apologetic. We apologise for it,” he had tweeted in Hindi.
However, the video was used by several people, including BJP leaders, to attack Gandhi and the Congress party after the Udaipur murder on June 28.
The assailants in Udaipur purportedly admitted their crime in a video clip, saying it was meant to avenge an insult to Islam.
