2 HW News reporters held: TOI calls them ‘journos’ on page 1, drops their statement

Even as leading English newspapers reported on the detention and FIRs against two women journalists reporting on the communal violence in Tripura, the Times of India on Monday chose to call them “two young women claiming to be journalists”.

Samriddhi Sakunia, 21, and Swarna Jha, 25, Delhi-based reporters with HW News Network, an independent news website, were detained by the Assam police in Karimganj district enroute Silchar in connection with a case filed in Tripura on Sunday. This came a day after another FIR was lodged against them in Tripura for “maligning” the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the BJP-led state government.

The Indian Express reported on the detention on the front page of its Delhi edition, while the Hindu carried the news prominently on page 10 of its Chennai edition. The New Indian Express published a report on page seven of its Bengaluru edition and the Hindustan Times on page eight of its Delhi edition.

The Times of India carried a brief about the incident on the front page of its Mumbai edition but the headline stated: 2 women ‘journos’ held in Tripura. The opening sentence read:

Two women claiming to be journalists on an assignment were detained in Assam’s Karimganj on Sunday after Tripura police slapped notices on them for “criminal conspiracy” and “promoting enmity on grounds of religion".

A detailed report on page nine of the same edition did not mention that the two journalists were associated with HW News Network, which had on Sunday issued a statement on the series of events. It did not publish reactions or tweets by the two reporters either.

However, the report did include a quote by an unnamed official that seemed to push the version of the Tripura police or VHP﹘about the reportage by the two journalists being provocative in nature. “A false story of a holy book being desecrated in a shrine at Kakraban in Gomati district last month had been cooked up by the accused, which triggered the violence in Maharashtra,” read the official’s quote.

The report also carried a statement by the Editors Guild of India condemning the detention.

The two journalists had on Friday reported on a mosque that was torched in Tripura’s Gomati district. They arrived in Dharmanagar on Saturday to report on the alleged targeting of another mosque and properties owned by Muslims in Panisagar subdivision, the region hit by violence spurred during a VHP rally on October 26.

The first FIR was lodged at the Fatikroy police station in Unakoti district on Saturday under three sections of the Indian Penal Code – 120B (criminal conspiracy), 153 A (provocation with intent to cause riot) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace).

A complaint was lodged by one Kanchan Das, who alleged that the two journalists “delivered instigating speech against Hindus and the Tripura government” while visiting “Muslim houses” in Fatikroy on November 13. He claimed that Sakunia had “falsely imparted” the names of VHP and Bajrang Dal in connection with the torching of a mosque in Unakoti’s Paul Bazaar on October 24, which had maligned the organisation and the state government. This, Das alleged, was part of a “criminal conspiracy” to “destroy communal harmony in Tripura”.