Congress leaders in Mumbai on Wednesday filed a complaint against Republic TV's editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami over the WhatsApp chats between him and Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC)'s former CEO Partho Dasgupta.
Purported chats between Goswami and Dasgupta, which mentioned that the former was privy to the 2019 air strike by the IAF on the biggest JeM training camp in Balakot had surfaced recently and this has sparked a political furore.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Sachin Sawant took to Twitter and informed that they have filed a complaint, and also demanded Goswami's immediate arrest.
He tweeted, "Officially filed complaint at Kandiwali's Samtanagar police stn with ACP Mohite & Senior PI Hake against Arnab Goswami demanding his immediate arrest for breaching Section 5 of OSA & investigate. It needs to be known also - Who gave him info regarding Balakot strike?"
"To whom he has divulged this info related to national security? Does he hv any pakistani connections as pakistan seemed to hv bn ready for the attack? @DrAjantaaYadav @YadavRajpat, Ram Pandagale, @anandraivats, Indu Tewari, Anant Jadhav, R.P Pandey & many Congress workers wr present," he added.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the “person through which” prior information on India’s air strikes in Balakot in Pakistan in 2019 was made available to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. The Congress MP, however, did not provide evidence to back up his claim.
“Some days back it came out that a journalist knew about the air strikes in Balakot. Three days before the (Indian) air force bombed Pakistan, an Indian journalist was told it was going to happen,” he said. This meant the lives of our IAF pilots were put at ‘risk,’ he said.
“Now, five people in this world knew about Balakot (air strikes). Prime Minister of India, the Defence minister of India, the National Security Adviser and the Chief of the Air Force and the Home minister," he said.
“Nobody else in the world knew about Balakot before it happened. Now I want to understand why an enquiry has not started on who told this journalist about Balakot before it happened. The reason is that one of these five people told this man. One of these five people betrayed our Air Force,” he charged.
He alleged that “one of these people put the lives of our pilots in danger.”
“If the Prime Minister did not do it then why is he not ordering an enquiry. Think about it. The only reason that the Prime Minister has not ordered an enquiry is because he is the person through which that message has gone to this journalist,” Gandhi claimed.
Else, the PM should investigate and tell which one of these five people did it, Gandhi demanded.
Earlier, Dasgupta was arrested by the Mumbai crime branch on December 24 in a TRP scam case. The fake Television Rating Points (TRP) scam came to light last year when ratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a complaint through Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain television channels were rigging TRP numbers.
(With PTI inputs)
