A lady Mala Devi lodged an FIR at Varanasi’s Ramnagar police station in Uttar Pradesh on June 13, alleging Ms Supriya Sharma misrepresented her interview in Domari village, Varanasi. Accordingly, local police charged Ms Sharma under section 501 and 269 of the IPC for allegedly printing a defamatory story and a negligent act that is likely to cause the spread of a life-threatening disease.

Ms Sharma’s article documented the impacts of the lockdown and inadequate emergency food support in Domari village, Varanasi. Modi adopted Domari village as part of his constituency in 2018.

Uttar Pradesh police lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against Ms Supriya Sharma, the executive editor of a news portal namely Scroll.in for her report on the lockdown in India’s prime minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi. The Journalist Association of India & Journalists Federation of India & affiliates urges the Govt. of India & Uttar Pradesh Govt. to withdraw charges.

Secretary General of Journalists Federation of India, H K Sethi said: “This is a threat to democracy and attacks on freedom of expression rights.” He expresses concern over the harassment of journalists by lodging First Information Report’s in Uttar Pradesh, India and appeals to all journalists to fact-check before publishing a story.

The JFI said: “It is entirely inappropriate for a factual dispute to result in the police prosecution of a journalist. The JFI calls on the Indian government to drop the charges against Ms Supriya Sharma and review the use of First Information Report’s against journalists.”

For more information Contact JFI on +91 9899462353

The Journalists Federation of India represents more than 70,000 journalists in 10 countries