By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Bangaluru: The Karnataka Police submitted charge sheets under UAPA [section 22 A] against KK Shahina, accusing her of criminal conspiracy [120 B], threatening the witnesses to give statements against prosecution [section 506, 34]and under charges of influencing the witness statements in the Bangalore serial bomb blast case.
The Kerala Union of Working Journalists [KUWJ] have registered their strong protest against the Karnataka Police move. These types of moves against press and individual freedom need to be strongly resisted, the KUWJ statement said. This charge sheet from the Karnataka police without taking into consideration – the anticipatory bail granted by Karnataka High Court, letters submitted to Kerala and Karnataka Chief Ministers by senior journalists and cultural activists – indicates towards the revenge they have for Shahina, KUWJ noted.
Shahina, earlier through her sting operation was successful in exposing the Karnataka Police’s fabricated witness statements against Peoples Democratic Party Chairman Abdul Nasar Madani, detained under trial at Parappana Agrahara Jail – Bangaluru, accused of involvement in the Bangalore serial bomb blasts.
She had interviewed two witnesses in Kodagu [Karnataka] in November, 2010 when she was working as Kerala correspondent of the ‘Tehelka’ magazine. The report published in the magazine stated that the witnesses – Rafeeq and Yogananda – had spoken to Shahina contradicting the police version and she was thus successful in exposing the Karnataka Police conspiracies against Madani. [ Tehelka December 4, 2010 ].
Sebastian Paul, renowned social activist, writer and chairman of the ‘Madani Niyama sahaya vedi’ [the organisation formed to provide legal aid to Madani] opined that the charge sheet by Karnataka Police is not just against KK Shahina and instead against all those who stands by justice. He expressed his complete solidarity and support to KK Shahina.
It is in the very same country a journalist who carried out her professional duties is now being witch hunted by a state govt and its police, only because she dared to question the police version with regards to a under trial detainee who had to spent more than a decade in jail, without being proved guilty in a single case.
The charge sheet against KK Shahina is yet to make a major impact in the Kerala public sphere despite the fact that the media in the country has the right to make criticisms over the parliamentary affairs and even at the top judicial bodies.