While the vendetta against Republic TV Editor in chief Arnab Goswami continues unabated the senior journalist is also resolute to pay back his oppressors in the same coin. In yet another development, Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami has filed a petition seeking quashing of a fresh FIR filed against him.
Notably, this petition comes a day after the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, headed by Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray, on behalf of the Deputy Commission of Mumbai (Zone III), had filed an application in the apex court of the country alleging that the Republic TV Editor-in-Chief was “browbeating” the police.
Arnab today moved the apex court seeking quashing of a fresh FIR against him registered on May 3 on a complaint filed by Secretary of Raza Educational Welfare Society, Irfan Abubakar Shaikh.
Goswami has moved the Supreme Court seeking for this FIR to be quashed and for a blanket direction that no cognizance of any complaint is taken by any court on any FIR registered by the police on the same cause of action as in the present writ petition.
He has also sought a restraint against the “servant and agents” of the State of Maharashtra from filing any FIR against him in relation to his debate programs on the issue of the Bandra incident.
Arnab Goswami claims Congress building fake narrative of a fabricated migrant crisis
In his petition, Goswami has claimed that the Congress Party ecosystem also tried to build a fake narrative of a fabricated migrant crisis in Mumbai.
In his petition, he claims that Republic TV was the first channel to report the fact that political interest groups, mainly leaders of the Congress, were spreading fake news and orchestrating lockdown violations in Mumbai, which is a matter of national concern.
Goswami in his petition claims that the FIR is “politically motivated” and goes on to claim that same has been registered as the Mumbai Police “harbours ill will” against him.
Goswami’s petition says that since the Police realise that the anchor could not be “framed” in the case relating to objectionable comments made against Sonia Gandhi, a new FIR has now been registered.
The plea reads: “…the Mumbai Police, has registered the FIR based on a complaint filed by the Respondent No 3 (Irfan Abubakar Shaikh), which is patently false, vindictive, frivolous, malicious and precipitated with malice.”
Goswami re-asserts in his petition that the Bandra incident was a “fake migrant crisis” that he “unearthed” through his debate program. He has also sought adequate security to be provided to his family and his colleagues at Republic TV.
Fresh FIR against Arnab Goswami on May 3
On May 3, 2020, a new FIR was registered at Pydhonie police station on the complaint of Irfan Abubakar Shaikh, secretary of Raza Educational Welfare Society and a resident of Null Bazar in South Mumbai. The complaint said that Arnab Goswami had tried to create hatred against the Muslim community by linking the Bandra protests with a mosque near the protest site even though there was no such link.
Raza Academy had organised the August 2012 protests at Azad Maidan in Mumbai which escalated to riots. The most shocking incident of the Azad Maidan Riots was the desecration of Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial by the Muslim mobs. The war memorial is dedicated to the fighters of 1857 – the First Indian Freedom Struggle.
Shaikh said that on April, in a show on Republic Bharat anchored by Arnab Goswami, footage of the Bandra protest by migrants near Bandra railway station was used. The complaint said that protestors had only gathered at an open space near the mosque, but there was no link between the mosque and the protests. But “Arnab purposely highlighted the mosque to create communal disturbance in the city,” the complainant alleged.
Shaikh has also alleged that there were many other comments and debates on the channel which had blamed Muslims for spreading Coronavirus in the country. “Goswami had made many such hate filled comments against the community, targeting it,” he said.
The complaint notes that Arnab Goswami linked the Bandra Mosque to the migrants’ protest without any reason and gave a communal colour to the protest.
On 27th April, Arnab Goswami was interrogated for over 12 hours by Mumbai Police at NM Joshi Marg Police station in Mumbai. He was questioned after the Congress party filed more than 150 FIRs against him in various states of the country. The Supreme Court had merged all the FIRs into one and transferred to Mumbai. The apex court had also granted interim protection of three weeks to the Republic TV Editor. Republic Network’s CFO was also questioned for several hours in the same case.
Congress had in gloves with Mumbai police
The Congress party opened a war front against Arnab Goswami after he had questioned Congress President Sonia Gandhi over her silence on the Palghar lynching case where two Hindu saints and their driver were brutally killed by a mob in the presence of police. Arnab Goswami had used the birth name of Sonia Gandhi, and had insinuated that she will take the lynching as a success story after forming the govt in Maharashtra. Launching an attack against Sonia Gandhi, Arnab Goswami had questioned if she would have maintained the silence she is exhibiting today had Christian padres been killed instead of Hindu sadhus in the horrifying lynching incident in Palghar. Taking objections to the comments, Congress party had filed police complaints in various states against him, mostly in Congress ruled states.
Arnab Goswami was also attacked by two Congress goons in the wee hours of the intervening night between the 22nd and the 23rd of April. Although they had confessed to be Congress members before the security officer of Arnab Goswami, the Mumbai police refused to mention that in the FIR registered in the attack. Goswami alleges that attack on him is being ignored by police, while the entire police force have gone after against him.
