Chhattisgarh and UP cops jostle over Zee TV anchor's arrest

Videos on social media show policemen from the two states arguing and then getting involved in a fistfight

Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan : Twitter/ @irohitr

Imran Ahmed Siddiqui   |   TT  |  New Delhi   |   06.07.22  : Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh police jostled and fought on Tuesday morning in Ghaziabad town when the former arrived there to arrest Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan for airing a misleading video on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Videos on social media showed policemen from the two states — Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh and BJP-governed Uttar Pradesh — arguing and then getting involved in a fistfight after the Chhattisgarh police attempted to take Ranjan into custody outside the journalist’s house in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram.

Later, the Noida police took Ranjan to an undisclosed location and prevented his arrest. 

After the Chhattisgarh cops arrived outside Ranjan’s house around 5.30am, the journalist tweeted an SOS to Uttar Pradesh police, tagging chief minister Yogi Adityanath. “Chhattisgarh police is standing outside my house to arrest me without informing the local police. Is it legal?” the Zee News anchor tweeted in Hindi.

The Raipur police tweeted in response: “There is no such rule to inform. Still, now they are informed. The police team has shown you the court’s warrant of arrest. You should in fact cooperate, join in the investigation and put your defence in court.” 

Soon, police forces from Ghaziabad and Noida arrived.

The Uttar Pradesh police did not officially comment on where Ranjan was and if he had been taken into custody.

A Noida police officer told PTI, seeking anonymity: “Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan was picked up from his home for questioning on Tuesday morning by a team from Noida Sector-20 police station in connection with an FIR lodged under IPC 505 (public mischief) on a complaint by his own channel over a doctored video played during his show on July 1.”

A senior Ghaziabad police officer told the news agency that the local city police were not involved in the case.

The Chhattisgarh team led by a DSP-rank officer later alleged obstruction by the local police.

An officer claimed that the Ghaziabad police had intervened in the legal procedure by taking Ranjan away with them from his home and then saying he had been detained by the Noida police. 

“We had registered a criminal case against Rohit Ranjan at Civil Lines police station in Raipur. We had the arrest warrant and the court order. We came here regarding that in the morning but even after 12 hours the police here (Ghaziabad and Noida) are not informing us about Rohit Ranjan’s whereabouts,” the officer told PTI.

On Sunday, FIRs had been registered in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh by Congress workers against Zee News for posting the misleading video and also against some BJP leaders for sharing it.

The FIRs were registered under IPC Sections 504 (intentional insult), 505 (criminal intimidation), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, etc.), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).

The Zee News programme, hosted by Ranjan, suggested that Rahul had described the Udaipur killers as “children” and sought forgiveness for them. Rahul had talked about the attack on his office in Wayanad by SFI supporters and said he had forgiven them as they were “children”.

Following the controversy, Zee apologised for the video and took it off air. Ranjan said: “Rahul Gandhi’s statement was taken in the wrong context by linking it to the Udaipur incident, it was a human error for which our team apologises.”

Congress MP and party communications chief Jairam Ramesh said Uttar Pradesh police “deliberately interfered with an ongoing investigation to shield an accused. They have deployed state machinery, without cause or explanation, to hide an individual accused of serious offences from a legitimate investigation. What is it that their political masters are afraid of being uncovered through an investigation?”

He said the arrest warrant was issued by a competent court on an application made with facts available in the public domain.“Can the BJP claim that the courts are also politicised? If that is so, then why doesn’t the BJP, if they are so keen to protect the accused, approach the courts? What is this nexus that the BJP is afraid of being exposed? Why doesn’t the BJP want purveyors of fake news and false reportage which can cause serious civil unrest to be held to account?” Ramesh said in a statement.