Journalists protest NewsClick arrests, write to CJI; BJP defends police action

The letter requested the judiciary to “confront power with a fundamental truth — that there is a Constitution to which we are all answerable to”. The letter also stated that the invocation of the UAPA was “specially chilling” while requesting the higher judiciary’s intervention to put an end to the “increasingly repressive” use of investigating agencies against the media.

The letter also criticised the seizure of mobile phones and computers with no word on data’s safety and privacy. “On October 3, 2023, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police raided the homes of 46 professionals connected in one way or another to the online news portal, Newsclick…Journalism cannot be prosecuted as ‘terrorism’. Enough instances in history abound to tell us where that eventually goes…the country’s investigating agencies have been misused and weaponised against the Press. Sedition and terrorism cases have been filed against editors and reporters and frivolous FIRs have been used as an instrument of harassment against journalists,” the letter stated.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a journalist, writer and publisher, who works with the NewsClick in the capacity of a consultant and was questioned by Delhi Police’s Special Cell on Tuesday, said, “Never before in the history of Delhi have hundreds of policemen visited the homes of journalists and some non-journalists…”