The Editors Guild of India has demanded the immediate release of Kishore Ram, the Dalit journalist recently arrested by the Uttarakhand Police on charges of inciting and promoting caste-based violence.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Guild wrote that it is “deeply disturbed” by Ram’s arrest.
Ram was arrested on February 23 by the Pithoragarh police under section 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups) of the Indian Penal Code.
Ram, who is a journalist working for a news portal named Janjwar, has been reporting on issues faced by members of marginalised communities for a considerable period of time.
The FIR was registered against Ram for his reporting on two separate incidents – one pertaining to the death of a scheduled caste (SC) youth on February 13 and the other on the rape of two SC girls on February 18. In both cases, the journalist had interviewed those who were acquainted with the victims as well as their family members. He had uploaded the videos of the interviews on the website.
The police have accused Ram of “asking for the caste identities of people” and discussing the “killing of people belonging to SC community by upper caste people.”
Recently, those associated with Ram mentioned that the police have arrested him under fake charges. Following his arrest, members of civil society and a group of journalists held a protest at Dehradun on Sunday, demanding his release. They also wrote a letter to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami urging the same.
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Ajay Prakash, an editor at Janjwar, also told National Herald that crimes against members of the SC community are on the rise under the BJP regime in Uttarakhand. “Dalits are facing discrimination in every sphere of life. The Uttarakhand Police has arrested Ram for bringing out an inconvenient truth,” he added.
In its statement, the Editors Guild urged the state administration and the law enforcement agencies “to not use penal laws as tools of intimidation against journalists’ right to report on societal and caste-based issues.”