ISLAMABAD – Senior Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, in a series of tweets onThursday, said she had been receiving threats from certain quarters in thegovernment who wanted her to stop working in TV news
NDTV’s journalist Ravish Kumar and independent journalist Rana Ayyub hadrecently accused the ruling BJP of orchestrating systematic online andoffline harassment, a new story published in The Hindu on Thursday said.
“Over the last few months those associated with the ruling party havewarned me – politely, impolitely – not to work on new TV projects and toldme – “we will never allow them to happen”, today I was told a 45 minutemeeting held on how to stop me, smear me, malign me, tap me,” Ms. Dutttweeted. She has been planning to launch a television news channel of herown.
Ms. Dutt also tagged Information and Broadcasting Minister RajyavardhanRathore, asking him to take note of these threats.
“I hope Rathore, as I&B Minister takes notes of chilling threats conveyedto me on the plans within on how to stop me from working in TV news. And ifthe government is tapping my phones and bugging my house – it is grosslyillegal and a violation of my privacy. Thank you,” she said.
There has been no response yet from the Ministry of Information andBroadcasting.
“I never thought the day would come when in my own country, I would be toldto hire private security & get my house debugged. I suppose i should beready for phone taps, IT cases, ED raids, death threats – the meeting heldby those who wield power have said – Stop her work projects,” she said.