Noida police has taken into custody a television anchor for airing a misleading video on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for which the channel has apologised.
Policemen from two states - Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh and BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh - are seen fighting and jostling for the anchor's custody in a dramatic video filmed this morning, reports ndtv.com
According to a video aired by NDTV, Zee TV anchor Rohit Ranjan, was taken into custody on Tuesday after an apparent scuffle. It was reported by ndtv.com that the Chhattisgarh police had first tried to arrest the anchor after which the police in Noida stepped in.
Rohit Ranjan, ndtv.com reported, sent an SOS to the Uttar Pradesh police when the Chhattisgarh cops landed at his home. The Noida police then took him away, preventing his arrest by the Chhattisgarh team.
Cases were filed against the TV anchor in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh after Rohit Ranjan played a Rahul Gandhi statement on the young men who had attacked his office in Kerala's Wayanad and allegedly ran it as a comment on the Udaipur tailor's killers.
The Congress has so far registered complaints in six states against BJP leaders for sharing the distorted video about Rahul Gandhi’s statement, insisting that the conspiracy of linking him to terrorists cannot be ignored.
While one FIR was registered in Rajasthan’s Jaipur on Sunday against Zee News for running the fake news, another FIR was lodged in Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh on Monday against former information & broadcasting minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, BJP MPs Subrat Pathak and Bhola Singh and MLA Kamlesh Saini. Complaints were lodged at police stations in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra as well.
Zee TV has apologised for the video which has been taken off the air. Ranjan said on his show, "Yesterday, in our show DNA, Rahul Gandhi's statement was taken in the wrong context by linking it to the Udaipur incident, it was a human error for which our team apologises."
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said Rahul Gandhi was referring to an attack on his Wayanad office when he said "the children who did this have acted in an irresponsible way. They are kids, forgive them".
"But the way the TV channel and the anchor ran the video made it seem like Rahul Gandhi was saying those who killed Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur were kids and should be forgiven," Gehlot said.
Congress social media head and spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said: “Our communications chief Jairam Ramesh had written a letter to BJP chief J.P. Nadda, asking him to respond within 24 hours but he chose not to respond. The Congress had threatened to take legal action if they didn’t apologise for spreading fake news. We were forced to take this action because the intention was to trigger communal frenzy through this distorted information.”
Shrinate added: “There is a trend in the BJP — those who will spread maximum hate and falsehood will get promotion. There was a minister of state who raised a nasty slogan during Delhi elections, got promoted to cabinet rank. This case was not merely spreading fake news; this was a sinister design to link Rahul Gandhi to the terrorists linked to the Udaipur murder. There is a larger conspiracy to defame Rahul Gandhi. Rahul lost his grandmother and father to terrorism and his name is being linked to terrorists. This will not be tolerated.”
Rahul Gandhi, apparently referring to the misleading video, tweeted, "The whole country knows the history of the BJP-RSS; they are pushing the country into the fire of hatred. No matter how much these traitors try to break the country, the Congress will continue to do more to unite India," he said.
