India: CFWIJ condemns police report against Ismat Ara for her coverage of farmers protest.

February 8, 2021, New Delhi: The Indian police added reporter Ismat Araa's name to the FIR registered against The Wire's editor for tweeting an article that implicated the police for the death of a farmer during the Indian Republic Day demonstration. The article cited the claims of the family of Navreet Singh, the sole casualty of the clash between the state and the protestors.

Following the publication of the article, an case was registered under Indian Penal Code Sections 153-B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration) and 505(2) (statements conducing to public mischief). The FIR was filed by a Rampur resident who accused Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Wire, for fanning tensions in the region. Later, the FIR was expanded to include the name of Ismat Araa, the reporter who originally worked on the article. 

According to the article, Navreet Singh’s grandfather claimed that he was informed of a bullet wound in Singh’s body by a doctor. He added that the doctor admitted that he was unable to go public about this. The doctors, when questioned, refuted the claim. According to the postmortem reports, “cause of death is shock and haemorrhage as a result of ante-mortem head injury”. The article included these details alongside the family’s statements. This was even made clear to the Rampur District Magistrate on twitter.

However, the FIR alleges that government medical officers were wrongly quoted to “incite” the public, and justifies itself by asserting that the tweet has not been deleted despite the doctors’ statements refuting the family’s claims. 

The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns this misuse of state power to curb the freedom of press. This is not the only case of the Indian state attempting to curb reporting on the ongoing demonstrations in the country. Reporters file articles covering all facets of a story; contradicting statements over an incident is meant to provide a fuller picture of the event, and not to incite violence. To justify this insititutional overreach by implicating the reporter and editor under false pretenses is reprehensible.