The Karnataka government has issued a show-cause notice to a Kannada daily on charges of inciting communal violence. The censure follows a newspaper report that claimed the police desecrated the Holy Quran while searching the house of a murder accused.

The Mangalore sub-division of the state’s revenue department has sent a notice to Vartha Bharati, asking why “their licence to publish should not be revoked”. Vartha Bharati is a leading Kannada daily published from Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Shivamogga. However, the publication has now got a stay order from the Karnataka High Court.

On September 3, the newspaper carried a story describing how the police in Dakshina Kannada district’s Bantwal town disrespected the Holy Quran while conducting a search operation at the house of Kalandar Shafi, who is accused of murdering an RSS worker and is absconding.

The newspaper’s Bantwal correspondent, Imtiaz Thumbay, spoke with Shafi’s family and they shared with him a photograph of the holy text thrown on the floor which, they claimed, was the police’s handiwork.

Shafi’s sister-in-law Souda Bani, who was in the house when the incident happened, has filed a police complaint about the brash behaviour of the men in khaki.

Her complaint, of which Newslaundry has a copy, states that sub-inspector AK Rakshit Gowda and his team got into their house with a search warrant and began throwing their clothes and books on the floor. The plaint says the sub-inspector opened the Quran and slammed it on the floor. When the family objected to it, he responded sarcastically and asked if it preaches them to kill.

As Newslaundry reported, the Bantwal police arrested the reporter four days after the story was published. He was sent to jail after the Bantwal court rejected his interim bail plea. He was granted bail after three days behind bars.

Also, the police charged Thumbay and the newspaper’s chief editor under Sections 153A and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code. These sections pertain to creating enmity between different groups and publishing reports containing rumours or alarming news with the intent to create enmity and hatred on the grounds of religion. The editor, Abdussalam Puthige, has not been arrested but is being investigated.

On September 13, the newspaper was served the show-cause notice. Newslaundry has a copy of it. Written in Kannada and sent by the state’s revenue department, it reads: “The story carried by the newspaper alleging that the Bantwal police had desecrated the Holy Quran on September 3 is false and the paper has made false allegations against the police by creating fake witnesses and fabricating pictures.”

Recommending strict action against the paper, the notice forthrightly states that Vartha Bharati is creating communal tension and inciting communal violence.

All newspapers in the region and a few news websites also carried the story the same day as Vartha Bharati but they have not received any notice from the government.

Tough times

Newslaundry spoke to Thumbay, who said he has never been this scared in his life. “I am being treated as a criminal. I never knew reporting a story could lead to such charges,” he exclaimed.

“The time is not conducive for journalistic work,” he rued. A journalist for six years now, he said the newspaper has been extremely supportive but he’s afraid that there is a sinister plot behind this episode and his arrest. He has been transferred to the Mangalore bureau of the newspaper owing to security concerns.

Thumbay routinely reports on communal violence by extremist groups in Bantwal, with the feather in his hat being his investigation into the murder of Congress leader Abdul Jaleel Karopady this April. Masked assailants had hacked Karopady to death on the premises of Buntwal taluk’s gram panchayat office.

He said that while the police are accusing him of spreading the pictures of the desecrated Quran on social media, the image had begun to go viral well before the story was published. He said he himself had seen the photograph on Facebook and WhatsApp groups before he interviewed Shafi’s family.

He said he clicked a photograph of their house to go with his story and shared it on a WhatsApp group with a brief about the incident. The group has journalists from across districts and they all routinely post news and updates. “Is that my mistake? That I shared my news on a news group?” he asked.

Staged photo, insist police

Arun K, assistant superintendent of police, Bantwal sub-division, confirmed the arrest and said the police have evidence against Thumbay. He alleged that the reporter himself desecrated the Quran for the sake of a sensational story and put the blame on the police.

He said Thumbay was guilty of not only staging the photograph and fabricating the story, but also of circulating it on WhatsApp, leading to a “feeling of hatred and inciting communal violence among the people”. He said the police have sent Thumbay’s phone to the state forensic laboratory to “check how many people he sent the hatred-filled messages to and how he incited communal violence”.

Gagging the media

The editor of Vartha Bharati termed it a clear case of gagging the media. He informed that Thumbay was produced before the JMFC court in Bantwal only at 4 pm on Friday (September 8) even though he was arrested the previous evening.

He said the police deliberately delayed producing him before the court as their motive was to thwart his chances of taking any remedial legal measures, since the court was to be closed for the next two days owing to weekend holidays.

He said that like any other reporter would, Thumbay was directed to get the said story. He pointed out that the newspaper did not publish merely the allegations of Shafi’s family but included the clarification issued by the superintendent of police, CH Sudheer Kumar Reddy.

“They arrested a journalist for doing his job. In addition, they have even sent us a notice asking why they should not shut us down. How will journalists function if this kind of arbitrariness and intimidation by government officials continues! We will fight for justice and will not be scared,” he said, matter-of-factly.

(Nivedita Niranjankumar is a Bengaluru-based freelance writer and M Raghuram is a Mangaluru-based freelance writer. Both are members of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)