COURTESY TOI APRIL 7

Reporters & anchors being threatened, say broadcasters
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:

The News Broadcasters Association, a collective of news and current affairs broadcasters, said on Monday journalists reporting on the Tablighi Jamaat congregation were being “threatened and abused” after they “exposed” its role in spreading the coronavirus pandemic in India. The organisation had also held a religious gathering of several thousand persons in March, before India went into a 21-day nationwide lockdown.

“Anchors and reporters working in news channels are being specifically targeted through social media platforms like WhatsApp, TikTok and Twitter,” the NBA said in a statement. It added, “There are videos circulating on social media in which some religious preachers are naming some TV news anchors and threatening attacks on the reporters of those channels.”

The NBA also said that religious preachers should refrain from “issuing open threats and making insinuations” against the news channels, saying that it violates freedom of speech and expression.

Saying this was a “pernicious trend” which the government and law enforcement agencies should step in to curtail, NBA also asked religious leaders to come forward and use the news channels to “clear their stand on the role of Tablighi Jamaat in spreading the novel coronavirus”