On a day when Mumbai police sent two notices to journalist Arnab Goswami to appear for interrogation in connection with FIRs registered him on complaints of Congress party across the country, the Republic Editor in Chief wrote to police urging to expedite the probe on him by Congress goons on the intervening night of 22 and 23 April.
In the letter sent to the senior police inspector of the NM Joshi Marg Police Station, Goswami has alleged that despite it has been established that two persons who attacked him and his wife are members of the Congress party, the FIR makes no mention of the same. He says that the confessions of the persons and the photos and official party designations of them have been submitted to the police. Arnab Goswami also writes that the FIR does not mentioned that liquid was thrown by the attackers, which can be acid or any other harmful substance, and this matter has not even been investigated by police, and appropriate sections have not been added in the FIR.
The letter mentions that the attack happened barely 500 meters from their house when Arnab Goswami and his wife were driving back home on 23rd April at around 00:15 hours. When the two attackers were caught by the security personnel of Goswami, they had confessed sent by party higher-ups to teach him a lesson, he wrote.
Arnab Goswami writes that now attempts are being made to established that two persons carried out the assault on their individual capacity. “There appears to be a well thought-out attempt to hide the conspiracy of the Congress Party to stifle my organisation and my voice with the use of physical and criminal force and intimidation and threats to kill”, he says.
In the letter, Arnab Goswami furnishes proof that the two persons are Congress members. Arun Borade is the “President, Sion Koliwada Assembly Youth Congress, Mumbai” and, Prateej Mishra claims to be “General Secretary (Sion Koliwada Youth Congress),” which is evident from their social media accounts.
The journalist also asserts that the attack was pre-planned. He has cited how the two goons waited for him, the fact that it happened hours after more than a hundred FIRs were filed against him in various states, and their social media posts before the attack, to stress that it was already planned.
Goswami adds that Shivaji Hosmani, the police officer deputed for his protection, has said that “the attackers had identified themselves as members of the Youth Congress who had been sent by higher ups to teach me a lesson”.
“It is therefore disconcerting that an attempt is now being made by the police to hide the deep Congress hand in the attack against my wife and me,” Arnab Goswami says. He urged the police to “take into account the calibrated, malicious Congress conspiracy behind the attack” and hoped that the unabashed attempt to conceal the Congress connection will be put to and end.
It may be noted that Mumbai police has issued notices to Arnab Goswami to appear before it on cases lodged by the Congress party over his comments questioning Sonia Gandhi’s silence over Palghar lynching. The Supreme Court has granted him the protection of 3 weeks from arrest, and clubbed more than 150 FIRs across the country to be heard in Mumbai, and stayed all of them until further orders.
