'The Hindu' urges Gujarat police to drop fresh charges against Mahesh Langa

Following the Gujarat police move to lodge a fresh case against Mahesh Langa, a senior assistant editor with The Hindu, over the alleged possession of confidential documents of the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB), The Hindu’s editor Suresh Nambath has urged the police that charges against him be dropped.

This is the second case against Langa who was arrested earlier this month amid an ongoing investigation in an alleged GST fraud. The latest FIR has been lodged based on a complaint by the GMB while the first FIR is based on a complaint by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI).

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Nambath took to social media platform X to extend support to his colleague and said, “We would like to reiterate that journalists are required to process documents, including those of a confidential nature, in the line of their work. They are guided by the larger public interest in perusing documents that are official or confidential.”

“To file charges against them for possession of such documents is to undermine their journalistic work and their fundamental rights and to subvert the public interest. We urge the Gujarat police to drop the charges relating to the possession of classified documents against Mahesh,” he added.

Nambath also dubbed as “completely unacceptable” the remarks of District Superintendent of Police Ravi Teja Vasamsetty that the online FIR was not accessible to the public as it had been put under the “sensitive” category. He expressed concern over the second FIR registered against Langa at Sector 7 police station in Gandhinagar for possession of some documents related to the GMB on October 22.

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N Ram, the director of The Hindu Publishing Group, also said he supported journalists’ right to obtain and process confidential or “sensitive” official documents in the line of their work. “If journalists are imprisoned or otherwise penalised for obtaining and analysing such documents, much of investigative reporting would become extinct,” he remarked while condemning the Gujarat police’s charges on this count against Langa.