Maharashtra

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has joined colleagues in India in condemning the arrest of Tarakant Dwivedi, who writes under the pen name Akela, under India's Official Secrets Act. According to local media reports, Dwivedi was arrested Tuesday by the Government Railway Police and charged with criminal trespass. He will be held in police custody until...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the police in Maharashtra to provide all details of the circumstances surrounding the arrest of journalist Sudhir Dhawle, in the state's eastern district of Wardha on January 2. According to IFJ sources in Maharashtra, Dhawle had visited the neighbouring district of Gondia to attend a convention on Adivasi and Dalit literature (i.e...

A journalist with a Marathi news channel was thrashed by unidentified persons while covering an incident of fire at Dadar in central Mumbai on Tuesday, police said. Amit Joshi, reporter with Zee 24 Taas, a Marathi news channel of Zee group, was attacked with bamboos sticks and an iron rod at a garment warehouse. "An FIR under section 307 (Attempt to murder) of the IPC was registered against...

The police on Friday arrested Vanita Ghag, a Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporator from the Malad are, and six other party workers for assaulting a journalist in the presence of the police in Mumbai in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Times of India has reported. A mob of around 100 MNS supporters, who were shouting slogans in favour of party chief Raj Thackeray at the premises of...

A senior journalist from Uttar Pradesh was on Thursday brutally beaten by supporters of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in Mumbai, a day after a young man from the state died after being thrashed in a suburban train, Indo-Asian News Service has reported. Some details from the IANS report: [ Link] Dinanath Tiwari, 45, who works for the Nirbhay Pathik tabloid, had gone to Kurar village in the...

A journalist and three others were detained by the Mumbai Police on Saturday after they were involved into a scuffle with filmmaker Ashok Pandit while staging a protest at Azad Maidan in the city, the Indian Express has reported. Dilnaz Boga, who is working with a city newspaper, has done extensive research on Kashmir and made a documentary on the plight of children in Kashmir. She had also called...

The police commissioner of Aruangabad, KL Bishnoi, on Thursday suspended a head constable for threatening to kill a press photographer, says a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. The report against constable Pradeep Dhote and Sudhakar Rathod of MIDC Waluj poilce station and Vishnu Jagdale and Babasaheb Kakade of Cantonment police station will be submitted on Friday. The policemen reportedly...

Two city journalists — a female PTI staffer and NDTV India reporter Dharmendra Tiwari — were threatened, abused and assaulted by two railway officials inside a Titwala-bound local train on Saturday night, says an Indian Express report. The incident occurred when the reporters were returning home to Ghatkopar from Sion at 10.45 pm. According to a complaint filed by the reporters with the Kurla...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the attack by political activists on the home of Kumar Ketkar, editor of the Marathi language daily Loksatta, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra on June 5. The All-India Newspaper Employees’ Federation (AINEF), an affiliate of the IFJ, joined this call for action. The attack in Thane, a city adjoining the greater Mumbai...

The house of Loksatta editor Kumar Ketkar was attacked in Thane on Thursday morning by a pro-NCP group Shivsangram Sangathan protesting Ketkar editorial criticising the Maharashtra government's plans to erect a statue of Maratha King Chhatrapati Shivaji. The activists pelted stones damaging windowpanes of Ketkar's house and also tried to ransack it. Ketkar and his wife were in the house when the...