Mumbai Police arrested Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami in connection with an abetment to suicide case filed against him and two others in 2018. Investigations to the case, which involve the death of Anvay Naik and his mother, Kumud Naik, were reopened recently. Visuals flashed on Republic TV showing Arnab being forced into a police van.
Anvay, an interior designer and his mother, had died by suicide in 2018. A suicide note, allegedly written by Kumud, claimed that Arnab and two others owed him Rs 5.4 crore for the interior services his company Concorde Designs Private Limited rendered during the construction of Republic TV studio. Kumud in the letter states that he was forced to take the extreme step as a result. Kumud killed herself when she heard of her son’s death. Although the Alibaug Police had registered a case of abetment to suicide, the case was supposedly closed by the Raigad police in 2019.
Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in a tweet said that a fresh probe was ordered after Kumud’s daughter Adnya approached him regarding the case. “Adnya Naik had complained to me that Alibaug Police had not investigated non-payment of dues from Arnab Goswami’s Republic, which drove her entrepreneur father and grandmom to suicide in May 2018,” he tweeted. “I’ve ordered a CID re-investigation into the case.”
Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar slammed Maharashtra Police’s attack on press freedom and compared it to those of “Emergency days”. In a tweet, he says: “We condemn the attack on press freedom in #Maharashtra. This is not the way to treat the Press. This reminds us of the emergency days when the press was treated like this,” he tweeted. In a later tweet, he blamed the Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi for the arrest. “We condemn the #Congress, led by Sonia Gandhi & Rahul Gandhi, for its fascist and emergency mindset, which is on display in #Maharashtra.”
Union Minister Smirti Irani writes in her tweet. “Those in the free press who don’t stand up today in support of Arnab, you are now tactically in support of fascism.”
The arrest of Arnab Goswami comes at a time when he is at loggerheads with the Maharasthra government over a chain of issues involving the investigation into Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, TRP scam and so on. Arnab is facing two FIRs, registered at Pydhonie and NM Joshi Marg police stations, for allegedly inciting communal tension.
The Mumbai Police had recently booked an executive editor, an anchor, two reporters and other editorial staff of Republic Media Network for broadcasting alleged defamatory news content against the police department. According to Mumbai police, Arnab was taken to Alibaug after his arrest.
Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut also took to Twitter, where she shared a video saying many "free speech greats" have been hanged in the past for raising their voices.
