Srinagar: Tsewang Rigzin, a correspondent from Leh for the Jammu-based daily State Times, was arrested on September 5 on the basis of a police complaint lodged by the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal from Ladakh, after one of the members on Facebook group- Rigzin operates, commented on the post about the parliamentarian.
Rigzin, who runs a popular Facebook group, ‘Ladakh in the Media’, which has about 34,000 members was arrested on September 5 – after a member, whom the police have not been able to trace yet, had posted a comment on the BJP parliamentarian on September 3 – citing the fact that he was the admin of that social media platform.
However, Rigzin was granted bail on the same evening.
In the run-up to the May 6, 2019, Parliamentary elections in Ladakh, which was won by Namgyal, Rigzin – as the general secretary of the Leh Press Club – the Journalist was instrumental in filing an FIR against the then Jammu and Kashmir BJP leader Vikram Singh Randhawa for allegedly bribing journalists at a press meet “to influence the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections” just a day before the polling day.
However, the arrest was said to been made under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code which amounts to ‘disobeying a public servant’.
While Rigzin has been unable to source a copy of the complaint yet, he in a statement to a Delhi based news organisation The Wire said that he is ‘unsure if this is indeed the section under which he has been booked’.
Rigzin also said that until police brought the post to his notice on September 4, he had not seen it and said he immediately offered to delete it. However, the police instructed him against it, saying it would amount to ‘destruction of evidence’ as the police had taken note of the BJP MP’s complaint by then.
The comment posted in the group, according to the report, alleged that “for power, Namgyal would go to any length, even sell someone from his family.”
The comment was in response to a video uploaded by another member on September 1 in which Namgyal could be seen delivering a “fiery” speech, back when he was a student leader. He had commented on the border issue and questioned the then UPA II government about managing the India-China border.
Namgyal came to prominence in Indian media after he gave an impassioned speech in support of the Narendra Modi government’s decision to read down Article 370 and to make Ladakh a Union Territory (UT).
Importantly, Rigzin said that his arrest based on the BJP MP’s complaint came just two days after he had questioned a resolution taken by the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), which is now run by the BJP.
In a video that Rigzin posted on Facebook on September 7 narrating the turn of events leading to his arrest on September 5, he said, “I questioned why LAHDC was so indecisive to have not been able to focus on one proposal.”
He said: “I have nothing against the BJP or any other party. Still, I thought of recording the video to put out the chronology of events in the public domain because I felt I shouldn’t keep quiet about it. Curiously, the member [of his Facebook group] who had made that comment also can’t be traced. Who knows if someone had knowingly done that to put me in trouble? Today, if my voice is silenced, tomorrow it may happen to someone else and that voice too may have to remain silent. I had offered to delete the post and still action was taken against me. Had I refused to do so, then such action would be understandable but I was ready to cooperate.”
On being asked about the FIR just before the May 2019 parliamentary polls, Rigzin to The Wire said: “I was instrumental in filing that FIR. After we filed the case, some of our media friends had suggested that we shouldn’t go ahead because we might get into trouble. I said we should not withdraw it as it was wrong to try and bribe journalists. Later, when we were still a part of Jammu and Kashmir, Ravinder Rana, the president of the then state BJP, in an interview, accused me of making it an issue. So, I was a marked man.”
As to what became of the case, he said, “Nothing has happened. Though the case is not closed, we have not withdrawn the FIR.”
Meanwhile, the Indian Journalists Union, in a statement, condemned the arrest of Rigzin, who is also the general secretary of Ladakh Journalists Union.
The statement which called the action against Rigzin “illegal and arbitrary,” said, “the Delhi High Court, in a ruling in 2016, made it clear that the administrator of a social media group couldn’t be held responsible for a post by one of its members.”
Free Press Kashmir is now on Telegram. Click here to Join.
