The office of the Director General of Police, Meghalaya, sent a letter to the editor of Northeast Now with a response to a news item that appeared in the publication headlined “Meghalaya Police sends gag order to Northeast Now, demands source of information from journalist“.

The article in question, dated August 13, said MGT Sangma, Special Superintendent of Police, “sent a notice under Section 91 CrPC to Guwahati-based Northeast Now, and asked the portal to remove a news report related to the state’s opposition leader Mukul Sangma” and that the SSP asked Northeast Now to “provide the authenticity of the source of information”.

To give some context, on August 10, Northeast Now had reported that the former Meghalaya chief minister and Congress leader Mukul Sangma may join the BJP. Sangma called this “nonsense” on Twitter and asked the Meghalaya police’s cyber cell to ” investigate and track the source of this misinformation”.

The letter from the DGP’s office was addressed to the president of the Shillong Press Club, Northeast Now‘s editor-in-chief Anirban Roy, and the editors of various publications including Shillong Times, Meghalaya Guardian, The Northeast Today, Mawphor and eight others.

The letter first pointed out that Northeast Now‘s August 13 report had “abridged the true definition” of Section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It stated that the “matter in contention is under inquiry as the publishing of the report/alarming news contains rumors which may incite hatred or ill-will between different communities, which is apart from the intent to defame the Leader of the Oppoition, Dr Mukul M Sangma.”

The letter said there is “no journalistic privilege or any codification that prevents media houses from disclosing their source of information as and when required” and that “such remarks by the Editor-in-Chief of a reputed daily is uncalled for”. This is in reference to Northeast Now’s Aniban Ray saying, ““I don’t understand as to how a police officer of the rank of SSP could issue such a notice to a media organisation.”

The letter said: “…the only aim of the notice under section 91 Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 was to ascertain the authenticity of the information, which has been denounced as misinformation with criminal, malafide and defamatory intent by the Leader of the Opposition himself”.

The letter, signed by GK Iangrai, Assistant Inspector General of Police, asserted that the police “completely supports the media houses in its endeavours to ensure fair investigation which is the hallmark of rule of law, and in no shape or form, is discharging official duties which is earning a bad name for our beloved nation…” It concluded that it was not “curtailing the roles of the fourth pillar”.