A Malayalam news channel has come under Right-wing attacks for allegedly ignoring the Bengal violence, with an exasperated newsroom journalist’s sarcastic comments to an apparently pro-BJP caller being recorded and uploaded on social media to discredit the broadcaster.

Asianet News, the channel, apologised for the journalist’s “unnecessary and immature remarks” and said action has been taken against her, and the reporter has herself offered a public apology.

Some have wondered whether the channel should have apologised while some others have pointed that the regret refers to the tone and a part of the comments of the reporter, not the channel’s decision on how to cover the violence in Bengal.

However, Asianet’s Facebook page has been flooded by messages attacking the channel, with some urging people to boycott it and providing technical instructions on how to unsubscribe to it from their bouquet of cable channels.

Asianet, owned by BJP Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar, had last year been banned briefly by the Centre over its coverage of mob attacks on the anti-CAA protesters in Delhi.

An Asianet source said the phone call was one of many similar calls, which seemed part of a Sangh parivar plot to malign and harass the channel and trap its employees into indiscretion.

The 77-second audio clip airs a purported conversation between a woman claiming to be calling from Kottayam and the reporter based at the channel’s Thiruvananthapuram headquarters.

“Why aren’t you carrying news reports and videos on Bengal?” the unidentified caller asks.

“It’s deliberate since there is only Covid here (in Kerala). Is there any point in covering some Sanghi getting beaten up in Bengal when our own brethren and neighbours are falling dead and there is no space to bury them?” a voice, purportedly of Praveena, replies.

The caller asks: “So, aren’t Bengalis Indians?”

“No, no, they’re from Pakistan. We have time only to give this news. You watch if you want to,” the reporter purportedly says, hanging up as the caller asks: “Why are you running a news channel?”

On Friday, the channel issued a statement on its Facebook page, saying: “We regret our colleague’s response to a call that came to our office the other day in which some unnecessary and immature remarks had crept in. We have taken necessary action against the erring person.”

The reporter wrote a Facebook post saying the Asianet office had been receiving “repeated calls” that accused it of failing to adequately report the Bengal violence.

“I happened to lose control while responding to repeated calls while engaged in reporting the seriousness of Covid. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I express my unconditional apology,” she wrote.

A senior journalist with the channel, who declined to be named, told The Telegraph: “Our office numbers are being circulated on WhatsApp groups associated with the Sangh parivar and BJP that are exhorting their supporters to call and harass us.”

He said the channel had carried several reports on the Bengal violence.

However, on Asianet’s Facebook page, a social media user has commented: “Dislike the (Facebook) page of this filthy channel that doesn’t report the mass killings in Bengal.”

Twitter campaigns have started with the hashtags #BanAsianet and #BoycottAsianet.

In March 2020, the Union information and broadcasting ministry had banned Asianet News along with another Malayalam channel, Media One, for 48 hours over “biased” reporting of the mob violence against anti-CAA protesters in Delhi. An outcry forced the ministry to lift the bans within hours.

Referring to the allegation of concerted Right-wing calls to pressure the channel, senior lawyer and columnist Sebastian Paul said this was “highly condemnable mob behaviour”.

“While readers and viewers have every right to approach the editor and express their views, this kind of calculated pressure on newsrooms is detrimental to the freedom of the press,” Paul said.

He likened it to the way Right-wing protesters had whipped up frenzy against the Malayalam novel Meesha by S. Hareesh, accusing it of portraying Hindu women in a poor light.

The author eventually withdrew the novel from the Mathrubhumi weekly that was serialising it. Later published in a book form, Meesha won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for best Malayalam novel in February this year.