Mangalam TV reporter quits after alleged exposé on Kerala Transport Minister

On Sunday, Mangalam TV–a Malayalam news channel–ran an exposé on Kerala’s Transport minister AK Saseendran. The channel aired a lewd telephonic conversation allegedly between the minister and a woman. Hours after the bulletin was aired, the transport minister resigned despite denying the allegations made by the channel. Even as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the matter, the channel basked in the results their report had wrought.

However, four days since, a reporter from Mangalam TV told the Indian Express that a team of five reporters, headed by the channel’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ajith Kumar, were asked to trap the minister. The reporter, Al-Neema Ashraf claimed the that minister was a part of a list of five soft targets that channel planned to trap. “In that meeting, they said that we need to use any means to get exclusive news. Each member was given the names of targets and contact details,” said Ashraf.

While Ashraf said that she quit the channel in protest after a Malayalam daily reported that she laid a “honey trap” for the minister, senior editors and the CEO of the channel claimed that such a team was never set up and dismissed the allegations of “unethical reporting”. “The news report appeared in the paper and a website saying that it was a woman reporter from Kollam who laid the honey trap with personal details that pointed to me,” Ashraf said. “I started receiving calls from senior colleagues and friends about that report. It was unbearable for me as a journalist to face that allegation. I spent the day crying in my room and decided to resign. I met CEO Kumar, and he asked me whether I was going to create news (against the channel). He requested me to leave the office silently,” she claimed.

The CEO of the channel, however, still claims that the channel had verified the voice of the minister and said that Ashraf left the job because she got a better job with a better salary. Many veteran journalists suggested that the story could have been the result of a ‘honey trap’.