By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Pune: An FIR has been registered against Sudarshan TV news channel by Pune police for its controversial post on its FaceBook page indicating that terrorism does have religion and that is Islam.
The FIR was filed at the Yerwada police station on Wednesday against Sudarshan TV news channel under section 295 (A) (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) when the controversial post was brought to its notice by a social activist Aslam Abdul Latif Sayyed.
He credited TCN for report for outing this post.
Sudarshan TV news channel, the outspoken channel which claims itself to be ‘World’s first socio–patriotic channel’ and known for its Hindutva leanings, had on its FB account on June 29 enlisted 50 names of the fugitives claiming the list to be ‘India’s Most wanted’ and in the end asked “What do one understand after reading the list?”
The list had all Muslim names, so the most obvious inference one was assumed to draw after reading the list was that ‘Terrorism’ or ‘Crime’ is connected with Islam. Within a week the post had was ‘liked’ by 752 persons and shared by 438.
The post had attracted number of comments expressing anger against Islam and criticizing its followers. Some users even posted derogatory images of Muslims’ holy structure Kaba and Arabic word ‘Allah’.
After investigating the contents of the post, TwoCircles.net had exclusively reported the issue on July 10.
Part of the FIR reads that the TV channel’s controversial FB post attracted many derogatory comments and images even though it did not remove the post and hence there by committed a deliberate and malicious act with the intention to outrage religious feelings that is punishable under section 295 (A) of penal code.
“I read TwoCircles.net report that Sudarshan channel was spreading misinformation through FB post so I investigated the genuineness of the report and found out that indeed the report is trustworthy. I also found some images uploaded in the comments on the same page that were derogatory to Islam and Muslim community. So I filed a complaint with the police,” Sayyed told TwoCircles.net.
It was not easy for Sayyed to get the police to file an FIR as he had to go to the police station many times to know action over his complaint. “Police took two weeks to file the FIR. I had filed the complaint on July 14 and then followed it up many times. Yesterday, I sat in the police station and asked for FIR, but they did not include many sections in the case,” Sayyed said.
According to Sayyed’s advocate Qazi, there are many sections under which the case should have been booked but Yerwada police chose only one section – 295 (A) of IPC.
The complaint had asked for FIR under section 120(B) (Criminal conspiracy), 295(A) (Uttering words etc. with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person), 298, 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherene of common intention) of IPC read with section 67 (Punishment for publishing or transmitting indecent material in electronic form) of IT Act.
“As the offence is committed on the internet, section of IT Act is certainly applicable in the case. It is also the case of 505 of IPC as the contents were published with the apparent wrong or criminal intention. We shall move an application to the police to add these charges in the FIR,” Advocate Qazi said.
As the head office of Sudarshan TV channel is stationed in Noida and the offence registered is ‘Zero FIR’ (meaning, an FIR can be filed in any police station irrespective of the place of incident/jurisdiction and the same can be later transferred to the appropriate police station), the case will be transferred to police there for further investigation.