As part of an investigation into a news story he wrote, police in Kerala have delivered a notice to a journalist requesting that he provide his mobile phone. The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) responded by staging protest marches to the state police chiefs’ and many district police chiefs’ offices on Tuesday.
The Malayalam daily Madhyamam published a story on July 28 about a purported data leak involving employment candidates at the state Public Service Commission (PSC). The police claimed the PSC agenda paper was “highly secret,” a photograph of it was included in the report titled “Details of job applicants in the dark web: DGP report.”
The editor of Madhyamam and Aniru Asokan, a reporter with the Thiruvananthapuram daily bureau, were handed summons by the Crime Branch as police started looking into how the newspaper obtained the document. Following a complaint from PSC secretary Saju George, the investigation was started.
The Crime Branch questioned journalist Aniru Asokan as part of the investigation. Asokan would not disclose his source. The publication then published a notice requesting information on how the PSC agenda was obtained.
On December 19, the notification under BNSS section 94 was delivered to the newspaper’s editors, stating that the information should be provided within 48 hours.
On December 21, Asokan received a second notice requesting that he show the investigating officer his cell phone within two days.
In a statement published in the daily, Madhyamam chief editor O Abdurahiman said that the investigation into the newspaper and its reporter violated press freedom. According to the statement, the publication would handle the police action legitimately.
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