Women journalists charged while reporting religious vandalism in Tripura, detained in Karimganj

Journalists Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha, allegedly reporting on the recent instances of religious vandalism in Tripura have been booked earlier on Sunday and had been detained in Assam’s Karimganj district. They were booked for spreading communal harmony, committing insult with the intent of provoking breach and criminal conspiracy.

FIR has been lodged against the two women journalists based on the complaint by local Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists. The FIR has been registered at Fatikroy police station in Unakoti district and has been asked to appear on November 21.

Despite several attempts, the Unakoti Superintendent of Police Rati Ranjan Debnath could not be contacted. However, a senior official of Tripura Police confirmed that an FIR has been lodged. “They were served notice under a case booked at Fatikroy police station to appear in next seven days. They received the notice and assured that they would come back in seven days,” he said.

The two journalists in several tweets claimed that they were doing ‘ground reporting’ at Tripura on the last month’s communal disturbances and they sought police permission and protection for the same. In a video tweet, they stated that the police collected their travel details on grounds of security and posted police outside their hotel. However, the duo was prevented from going anywhere. The police asked them to come for questioning on ‘very short notice’ thus, the duo consulted their lawyers. Later, the police served them a notice to appear at the police station on November 21.

FIR? in #Tripura@Jha_Swarnaa and I, the correspondent at @hwnewsnetwork have been booked under 3 sections of IPC at the Fatikroy police station, Tripura.

VHP filed complaint against me and @Jha_Swarnaa FIR has been filed under the section: 120(B), 153(A)/ 504.

Copy of FIR pic.twitter.com/a8XGC2Wjc5

— Samriddhi K Sakunia (@Samriddhi0809) November 14, 2021

However, the Tripura police denied that they stationed their cops outside their hotel and tweeted “…neither any police personnel was deployed outside their hotel nor they were restrained from moving out. The police party went to hotel to serve the legal notice as required under investigation of any case. The police party left after serving the notice.”

pic.twitter.com/yw2Yjg5AfH

— Tripura Police (@Tripura_Police) November 14, 2021

The journalists posted a copy of FIR and claimed that the complaint was raised by Kanchan Das of Kumarghat who stated, “part of criminal conspiracy to destroy the communal harmony in Tripura as well as to malign the VHP and Tripura government, the accused intentionally imparted the name of VHP in that incident which could effect the harmony in between Hindu and Muslim community.”

In a video recording posted by Samriddhi on the Twitter handle of Article 14 said that they went to Unakoti on November 13. “When we went to Pal Bazar mosque, the police was there with us during the entire time we were reporting and at Chowmuhani Bazar mosque too,” she added.

At 8:30 AM, Samriddhi got a call from a police officer at Dharmanagar asking for her travel details. “We asked why he needed them. They also took our Aadhaar card at the police station earlier, to which we asked why they would need our Aadhaar card as we had our ID cards with our numbers and addresses,” she added in the video. “We received three calls last night from the police at Dharmanagar, who said it was all for our security,” she said, claiming that at night they noticed “12-15 policemen… they came here around 9:30 and were standing but they didn’t tell us anything.”

However, on checking out from the hotel for Agartala, some police said that an FIR has been registered against them at the local Fatikroy police station by a few VHP activists. “The case was filed stating that we had disturbed communal harmony and said we would have to come to Dharmanagar police station. We told them that we need a lawyer and without him we can’t move,” Sakunia added.

Swarna Jha in another video stated that, “We asked how they could summon us at such a short notice. We told them that to change the appearing date to November 21 and they changed it. But there is a question – is doing ground reporting a criminal offence?”

The notice was served under Section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for appearance before the police.