Soon after, Zee News, a Hindi television channel, aired a video of the event in which it claimed these “anti-India” slogans could be heard. Members of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), its student body ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) disrupted the meeting, alleging “anti-India” activity. Media and students attended the event, with multiple people recording the session. The police accused them of raising “anti-India” slogans at a poetry reading on 9 February 2016 to commemorate three years of the controversial hanging of Afzal Guru, sentenced to death for an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. In February 2016, Delhi police arrested PhD students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and eight others, on charges of sedition. Article 14 found that police in ten states-Delhi, Assam, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, UP, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, and Haryana have filed such cases banking on bystander video footage. That’s 18% of all 138 sedition cases over this period. Since January 2020 to date, police have filed at least 25 cases of sedition based on unverified footage. This was not the first, and unlikely to be the last, case where police have used unattributed bystander videos to file cases, especially on charges of sedition, punishable by life-term. “Your (prosecution) material is a YouTube video, copied from a tweet.,” Pais said. Raza, in an interview to The Wire at the time, accused the channel of spreading hatred in the society in the name of ‘nationalism’ and violating journalistic norms.New Delhi: On 23 August 2021, during a bail hearing for former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid-accused of inciting violence in the Delhi riots of March 2020-his lawyer Trideep Pais told court that the video evidence Delhi police presented was sourced from Republic TV, which sourced it from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Amit Malviya, who made no mention of the source.
Gauhar Raza and the attendees/participants at the event as “Afzal Premi Gang”. Zee News also regrets the description of Prof. Gauhar Raza on at the annual Shankar Shah (Indo-Pak) mushaira at New Delhi. “Zee News” regrets the taglines used and views expressed during the broadcast of the programme/news report under the caption “Afzal Premi Gang ka Mushaira” on to, reporting upon the poetry recital by Prof. The following is the script of the apology as suggested by the NBSA:
Zee news hindi 10th april 2016 full#
Zee News has been directed to telecast their apology in Hindi (static) on full screen in large font size with a clearly audible voice over, in slow speed. Raza’s poems were about theatre activist Safdar Hashmi and the murder of two journalists in Iraq in 2010.Īlso read: Well-Known Poet-Scientist Gauhar Raza on Being Labelled an ‘Anti-National’ The programme had showed Raza reciting three of his poems at the 51st annual Shankar Shad Mushaira, a platform for Urdu poets from India and Pakistan. Lawyer Vrinda Grover represented the case before the NBSA.īetween March 9 and March 12, 2016, Zee News had telecast programmes titled ‘Afzal Premi Gang ka Mushaira’ and ‘Poetry Night on the Love for Afzal Guru Gang’. Raza had jointly filed a complaint with other well known personalities like Ashok Vajpeyi, Sharmila Tagore, Shubha Mudgal and Syeda Hameed. The NBSA however rejected its appeal last Saturday.
Zee News, which had earlier been asked to tender a public apology, had appealed against it. This is the highest punishment the NBSA can give to a channel. The channel has also been asked to deposit Rs 1 lakh in seven days. New Delhi: The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) on February 10 again ruled in favour of scientist and Urdu poet Gauhar Raza in his complaint against Zee News for calling him a member of the ‘Afzal Premi Gang’, asking the channel to display an apology on February 16, 2018, at 9 pm.