Arnab Goswami’s arrest by the police in Raigad district Wednesday, for allegedly abetting the suicide of 53-year-old interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik in 2018, has put the spotlight on the sheer number of cases filed against Republic TV and its editor-in-chief by the Maharashtra government. Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government comprising the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress, reopened it. Five other cases have been registered against Goswami and Republic TV since the MVA government came to power last year. This has prompted the opposition BJP to allege “police excesses” — it has lashed out at the MVA for creating a “situation like the Emergency”, while the ruling parties maintain that the police is simply acting on evidence. Below are the list of various cases filed against Arnab. Alibaug suicide case Anvay Naik, managing director of Concorde Designs Private Limited, and his mother Kumud were found dead in their home in Kavir...

  The Mumbai Police has to answer a more basic question: why is it playing hand-maiden to its political masters and going after a media house that is part of the fourth estate, a protected institution in a democracy? There is something eerie and intimidating about how the Mumbai Police have gone about trying to silence one of the most vociferous critics of the Maharashtra coalition headed by the Shiv Sena: Arnab Goswami of Republic TV. On Thursday (8 October), Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh directly accused the channel of manipulating its TRPs (television rating points) in order to garner high advertising revenues. Four people involved in such manipulation, one former employee of Hansa Research, which is involved in the monitoring of TRPs on behalf of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), two small channel owners, of Fakth Marathi and Box Cinema, and an ex-staffer of a film production firm have been arrested for this “crime”. Republic TV has only been verbally...

  A fresh FIR has been filed against Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami for allegedly manhandling a woman cop who was part of the team that arrested him on Wednesday (November 4) morning. Police have also filed an FIR against his wife Samyabrata Ray Goswami and son under Section 353 of the IPC for obstructing police officers during the arrest. The journalist who was arrested by Raigad police from his Mumbai home on charges of suicide abetment of an interior designer in 2018, told an Alibaug court that he was assaulted by police officers and sustained injuries on his hand and back during the arrest. He was then taken back to the Alibaug police station for an examination by a civil surgeon. Here's video of the arrest:  Meanwhile, Republic TV has approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Maharashtra Human Rights Commission alleging that the Mumbai and Raigad police had “unjustly and illegally” manhandled, assaulted and arrested Goswami. Earlier in the ...

Barely 24 hours after the remains of the 19-year-old-Dalit woman were consigned to flames by the police in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras without the consent of the family, another sexual assault and death of a 22-year-old Dalit woman has surfaced from Balrampur in the same state. Reflective of widely pervasive casteist mindsets, these brutal sexual assaults against Dalit women are being framed as isolated incidents of crime rather than atrocities which are the outcome of systemic and deep-rooted casteism and misogyny. It is important to acknowledge that there are several intersecting factors such as identities, institutions and hierarchies that result in this kind of structural violence. Women are not a homogenous group and are differentially impacted by forces of caste, class, religion, ethnicity, race, among others. The social location of Dalit women at the lowest rung of caste, class and gender hierarchies results in them facing multiple forms of discrimination and targeted violence. We h...

The 19-year-old woman, whose death in a Delhi hospital two weeks after she was brutally gangraped sparked protests and anguish, was cremated near her home in Hathras in the dead of the night early Wednesday with her family alleging they were forced by local police to conduct the last rites. “The cremation was done around 2.30-3 in the morning,” her father told PTI, a day after the young woman, grievously injured when she was allegedly gangraped by four upper caste men, gave up the battle for life. As political leaders and activists voiced their protest on social media and other platforms over the manner in which the funeral was conducted, local police said it was carried out as per the wishes of the family. In the moments preceding the cremation, the Dalit teen’s brother told PTI, “Police have forcibly taken the body and my father along with them for cremation. When my father reached Hathras (from New Delhi), he was immediately taken (to the crematorium) by the police.” Prime Minister ...

Police are failing to solve crimes committed against elderly people and letting perpetrators walk free, watchdogs have warned. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate found that care for older victims was not good enough in more than half of cases examined. In one case, a man pushed off his mobility scooter by masked youths was not visited for a day by police officers, despite being left “shaking, fearful and scared to go out at night”. In another, a woman with Parkinson’s disease alleged that she had been attacked by nursing home staff but the defendant was acquitted at trial after police failed to film her victim statement or give her an intermediary to help giving evidence. Officers also failed to take a statement from a 70-year-old woman with learning difficulties who had money stolen after asking an acquaintance for help with her finances and giving them her bank details. No-one was arrested. Another case was closed because an 83-year-old man ...