Shamli lynching: Two scribes among 6 booked for social media post

Sachin Sharma
Shamli: Days after a 31-year-old man, Mohd Firoz, died after he was beaten by a group of men for allegedly barging into a house in Jalalabad area of Shamli district last week, police booked six men, including two journalists, for “promoting enmity on grounds of religion” for reporting the incident on social media. These men were booked under BNS sections 196 (promoting enmity) and 353 (false statements).
A statement by DIGIPUB, a coalition of over 90 digital media outlets and independent journalists, states: “Registering an FIR against journalists sharing information in public interest is a grave overreach and misuse of criminal laws that has a chilling effect. While police have contested the nature of the incident, saying it was not communal in nature, there is no cause for filling cases against journalists putting out the information available to them.”
The statement added: “Reporting publicly available information, irrespective of the medium of the message, qualifies as bonafide journalism. Such arbitrary application of BNS tantamount to intimidation of journalists in direct violation of Article 19(1)(A) of the Constitution.”
According to two separate FIRs lodged at Thana Bhawan police station, the six men uploaded “malicious” content on social media, leading to anger among members of the Muslim community.
The accused include Wasim Akram, Asif Rana, Saif Illahabadi, Ahmed Raza Khan, Zakir Ali and an unidentified person. Police said details of the accused are being gathered, as only their names are available on social media. Notably, following the incident last Thursday, a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder was filed against three brothers, based on a complaint by the deceased's family. Later, police claimed that the post-mortem report did not confirm death due to beating, as no injury marks were found on the body.
Thana Bhawan SHO Rajendra Prasad said, “Firoz's viscera is being preserved for forensic examination.”