NEW YORK, Feb 12 (APP): The Committee to Protect Journalists CJP), an independent watchdog body, has called on the Indian authorities to drop their criminal investigation into journalist Mohammed Mubashiruddin Khurram and allow reporters to cover protests across India against a new citizenship law without fear of arrest or detention.
A CJP press release, citing news reports and the journalist, said two plainclothes police officers on February 8 in the Mallepally area of Hyderabad, in the southern Indian state of Telangana, arrested Khurram, a reporter with the local Urdu-language newspaper, The Siasat Daily, while he was covering a protest against the newly enacted Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens that demonstrators allege discriminate against Muslims in the country.
Police held Khurram for more than 15 hours, questioned him about his alleged ties to the protests, and released him after opening an investigation into five criminal allegations against him, it said. If charged and convicted, Khurram could face up to two years in prison for rioting, the most serious charge among those allegations, according to the Indian penal code.
“The protests taking place across India are of national importance and journalists must be able to cover them freely,” Aliya Iftikhar, the New York-based CPJ’s senior Asia researcher, said in a statement.
“Hyderabad police never should have detained journalist Mohammed Mubashiruddin Khurram, who was simply doing his job, and should drop their investigation against him,” Ms. Iftikhar added.
Hyderabad Police Task Force Inspector B. Gattu Mallu told CPJ in a phone interview that police “did not target [Khurram] because he is a journalist” and said that officers arrested him pursuant to a complaint previously filed by police.
The complaint, which CPJ reviewed, accused Khurram of creating “law and order problems” but did not make any specific allegations. Mallu refused to elaborate further on Khurram’s case.
Following his arrest, the police officers denied Khurram access to a lawyer or a phone call to his family, he said. He told CPJ that he was held for the night and was questioned by Deputy Commissioner of Police Radha Krishan Rao in the morning of February 9.
Rao accused Khurram of organizing the protests and questioned him about his tweets concerning the demonstrations and his alleged ties with Chandrashekhar Azad, one of the protest organizers, Khurram said.
Khurram told CPJ that he was not involved in organizing the protests, and that he only met Azad to interview him. He said he was only ever present at the protests to do his job as a journalist.
Khurram said Rao attempted to recruit him as a government informant, but Khurram said he refused. Following questioning, Khurram was released around 1:30 p.m. on February 9, he said.
Rao did not respond to a text message and phone call from CPJ seeking comment.
CPJ has documented a number of attacks against journalists covering protests across the country since December 2019, the press release said.
