Gowtham Pothagoni, a journalist with digital news portal Telugu Scribe, has been arrested and charged with “attempting to create political tensions and promoting disharmony among the public” and “insulting Telangana government and Chief Minister Revanth Reddy”.
The arrest on Monday comes seven months after the journalist posted a video on his X account where a farmer expressed his resentment towards the Telangana government, led by the Congress party. The arrest was based on four FIRs filed against Gowtham in September, three of which were solely based on this video. It's unclear why the complaints were filed in September over a video that went viral in March.
Three FIRs had named Gowtham while the fourth named both him and his employer, Telugu Scribe. “Gowtham was picked up in Bengaluru by the police on Monday and was brought to Hyderabad on Tuesday. He should have been produced before the magistrate earlier but they didn’t bring him to the magistrate until 5.30 in the morning,” Gowtham’s mother told TNM. Gowtham is currently lodged in Chanchalguda jail.
In the video he posted on X on March 12, of a farmer residing in Nalgonda, Gowtham wrote: “During a leisure trip of mine, I faced a heartbreaking incident yesterday. A farmer named Mallayya from Mushampalli village in Nalgonda district asked me to personally record a video of him and send it to KCR garu.”
KCR — K Chandrashekhar Rao — is the former chief minister of Telangana and the chief of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) party.
In the video, the farmer, Mallaya, spoke highly of KCR, and BRS policies like the Rythu Bandhu — a farmers investment support scheme introduced by BRS. He went on to say that he is debt-ridden under the current regime. Telangana elections were held in November last year and Congress’ Revanth Reddy took over as the new chief minister on December 7, 2023.
The video was widely circulated on social media. Telugu Scribe is a channel critical of the Congress in Telangana and supportive of the opposition BRS.
The first and second FIR were registered on September 28 at Kharkana and Vanasthalipuram police stations based on the complaints of a businessman named Shaik Ashraf and Anumakonda Bhargav, a student. The third FIR against Gowtham was registered on September 29, based on the complaint of a farmer named I Rama Chandra Reddy at Manchal police station.
All three complaints were identical, and said: “Some persons posted certain social media posts insulting our Chief Minister of Telangana Sri A Revanth Reddy garu and Telangana government by derogatory comments and such posts had a potential to create political tensions and enmity between groups and also promote disharmony among the public...which may lead to the law and order problem...They are spreading unnecessary rumours which are misleading the public due to which public peace and tranquility may be disturbed.”
A fourth FIR registered by the Cyber Crime police was based on a complaint by a person called J Sanjeev Reddy, and named Telugu Scribe along with Gowtham. This complaint accused the channel of posting derogatory comments against the CM and demanded that three URLs be deleted. One of them is the video of an elderly man in Adilabad verbally abusing CM Reddy for demolitions.
The three FIRs against Gowtham were registered under section 67 of the IT Act and under BNS sections 353(1)(b) (creation, publication, or distribution of false information, rumours, or statements that are intended to incite public mischief), 353(2) (statements conducing to public mischief), 352 (intentional insults that are intended to provoke a breach of peace or the commission of another offense), 193 (liability of owner, occupier, etc, of land on which an unlawful assembly or riot takes place) and 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony).
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