Continuing its vendetta against Republic TV Editor in chief Arnab Goswami, today Mumbai police registered another FIR against him. The new FIR has been registered on his remarks over the migrant labour protest in Bandra on April 14, therefore this does not come under the ambit of Supreme Court order that had said that no fresh FIR can be filed Against Goswami for his comments on Sonia Gandhi’s silence in Palghar lynching case.
According to a report by Hindustan Times, the new FIR was registered on Sunday 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.
The case against Arnab Goswami has been registered by the Pydhonie police under various sections of IPC. “We have registered a case against Arnab Goswami and the owner of Republic TV for the hatred. Further investigation is going on. As part of evidence after taking the statement we have collected the footage of the shows with the clips in a pen drive as evidence,” a police officer from Pydhonie police station told media.
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.
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.
