The Varanasi Police has booked Scroll's Executive Editor Supriya Sharma under SC/ST Act for her reportage on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's adopted Domari village on the banks of Ganga.
According to NDTV journalist Alok Pandey, Sharma was booked after a complaint by a woman who was a case study in a recent story filed by the journalist. The complainant alleges that the woman's story was ‘misreported’ by the journalist and presented as one of extreme poverty and hunger when that was not the case, Pandey said.
According to Bar&Bench, the FIR was filed under Sections 269, 501 of IPC along with Section 3 of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and concered with Sharma's article published on June 8 - In Varanasi village adopted by Prime Minister Modi, people went hungry during the lockdown.
In the article, Supriya Sharma claimed that the people from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's adopted Domari village did not receive any food kits due to the lockdown enforced due to the pandemic and are still going hungry. “Hum logon ko koi kit nahi mila, lekhpal bant rahe the,” Pradhan Chote Lal Patel said. However, the Varanasi officials said they did everything they could to ensure no one went hungry, the report said.
The report mentioned a single mother of five and domestic help named Mala. She wasn't paid by her employers during the lockdown. The report quoted her saying, “We would sleep on chai and roti, sometimes not even that.”
Twitter rallied behind Sharma after the news broke. "This is extremely worrying. A fine reporter like Supriya Sharma harassed like this," said writer Rahul Pandita. "#PressFreedom is becoming extinct in India," wrote film director Onir.
Here are a few Twitter reactions:
Meanwhile, Scroll said that the FIR was an attempt to intimidate and silence independent journalism. “Scroll.in interviewed Mala in Domari village, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, on June 5, 2020. Her statements have accurately been reported in the article titled, ‘In Varanasi village adopted by Prime Minister Modi, people went hungry during the lockdown," they said.
"Scroll.in stands by the article, which has been reported from the Prime Minister’s constituency. This FIR is an attempt to intimidate and silence independent journalism, reporting on conditions of vulnerable groups during the Covid-19 lockdown," they added.
