Last night, around 30 members of the Student Federation India barged into the Asianet News office in Kochi, shouting slogans and allegedly disrupting news operations. 

The SFI is the student wing of the governing CPIM in Kerala. They also put up a banner that says “this establishment is an insult to civilised Kerala”. In a report, Asianet News described the attack as a “brazen act of hooliganism”.

The SFI claimed Asianet had “faked” the interview of a minor girl last year in connection with a news report on the drug mafia. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said yesterday that the police were probing this “fake news” complaint.

The police arrived at the office soon after and Asianet News resident editor Abhilash G Nair subsequently filed a complaint at the Palarivattom police station. According to Asianet, the SFI members were booked under sections 143, 147 and 149 of the penal code.

The attack was widely condemned by press groups, including the Press Club of India, the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club, and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists.