Three Malayalam Regional Language Channels tried to aggravate protestors by continuously broadcasting false and malicious news about Tractor Rally on RD Day and a complaint has been filed against the three Malayalam News channels namely, Manorama News, MediaOne and Reporter TV for “exhorting and glorifying violence including acts of extremist organisations in which they made attempts to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected Central Government”.
The complaint which has been lodged with the DGP of Delhi Police accused the news channels of giving factually false news to glorify the Republic Day mayhem, where rioters disguised as farmers unleashed violence on the streets of the national capital and carried out the insurrection against the state by forcing their way into the Red Fort where they unfurled a religious flag and also denigrated the national flag. The Manorama news channel in its news report by its Delhi bureau chief Sawad Muhammed called the hoisting of religious flag in the red fort after attacking security forces as “capture of Delhi”. The same channel and reporter thereafter goes on glorifying the action of raising a religious flag in Redfort which he describes as a symbol of Nation to be a brave and valiant act and justifies it as a rightful reaction to the atrocities committed against the farmers by the Government.
The channels also tried to fearmonger by running the fake piece of news claiming that a farmer was killed on the day of violence because the police shot him in the head. This piece of false news was shared by several left journalists and intellectuals and tried to extricate the Khalsiatani protestors and also to malign the Delhi police. However on the next day, the post-mortem report revealed that the man died after his tractor had overturned. Legal Rights Observatory, an activist group which reportedly uses legal measures to take on people and organizations which they believe are indulged in anti-national works, tweeted informing the same: “#Kerala Complaint u/s 121, 121A, 124A,505,150,153, 153A,153B, 298 IPC filed with @DelhiPolice against Anusha Andrews, Sawad Muhammad of Malayalam @manoramaonline, Reporter-TV, Media One for glorifying violence by extremist groups to overthrow elected Government using terrorism”.
