The Congress on Sunday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre over the arrest of a contract journalist from the Singhu border with get together chief Rahul Gandhi saying those who fear reality arrest sincere scribes.
Mandeep Punia was arrested from the Singhu border on Sunday for allegedly misbehaving with the police personnel on responsibility on the farmers’ protest website there, officers mentioned.
A case was registered towards him and he has been arrested now, a senior police officer mentioned, a day after the scribe was detained.
Reacting to the event, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi, “Those who fear reality arrest sincere journalists.”
He additionally tagged a video purportedly displaying Punia being held by police on the border protest website.
Congress normal secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra mentioned journalists protecting the farmers’ motion are being arrested, instances are being slapped towards them and the web is being shut down in lots of locations.
“The BJP authorities desires to trample upon the voice of the farmers, however they’ve forgotten that the extra you suppress, the extra voices will rise towards your atrocities,” she mentioned in a tweet in Hindi.
Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, in a tweet in Hindi, addressed PM Modi and mentioned by slapping false instances on the BJP’s behest towards journalists exposing the assault on farmers and shutting down cell web at protest websites, “you won’t be able to suppress the farmers’ motion and shut out the nation’s voice”.
At a press convention, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate hit out on the authorities, saying it’s the seventieth day of the protest by farmers they usually have been pressured to sit down on the borders by an “insensitive, obstinate and cussed authorities that itself dug trenches and refused the farmers any entry in Delhi”.
“For anyone who tries to indicate their plight, their ache, this authorities will go after them — whether or not it’s individuals in social life, in political life or journalists. A really younger journalist by the identify Mandeep Punia was arrested and was offered earlier than the Justice of the Peace even earlier than his Defence lawyer might attain,” she mentioned, slamming the federal government over the scribe’s arrest.
“We strongly condemn the sedition instances they’ve filed towards our personal MP Shashi Tharoor or the form of sedition instances which have been filed towards Mrinal Pande, Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod Jose, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath and Anant Nath ,” Shrinate mentioned.
“We condemn it as these are the individuals who are attempting to indicate the true face of the farmer, who are attempting to deliver to gentle the plight of the farmer and as an alternative of standing with them and letting them do their jobs truthfully, this authorities goes after them,” she mentioned.
Tharoor and the six journalists have been booked by police, together with in BJP-ruled states akin to Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, over their allegedly deceptive tweets on the violence throughout the farmers’ tractor rally in Delhi on Republic Day.
Democracy is being “weakened” with each passing day and establishments are being “destroyed”, Shrinate mentioned.
Thousands of farmers, principally from Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at a number of border factors into Delhi since November-end, demanding repeal of the three agri legal guidelines and a authorized assure to the minimal help system for his or her crops.
Enacted final September, the three legal guidelines have been projected by the Centre as main reforms within the agriculture sector that can take away middlemen and permit farmers to promote their produce anyplace within the nation.
However, the protesting farmers have expressed their apprehension that the brand new legal guidelines would pave the way in which for eliminating the security cushion of the MSP and eliminate the wholesale market system, leaving them on the mercy of huge corporates.
