The Hindu : Gilani calls for debate on OSA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 18, 2003

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Gilani calls for debate on OSA

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 17. The Kashmir Times journalist, Ifthikar Gilani, today called for a debate on the Official Secrets Act, sections of which were contrary to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act passed by Parliament recently. He said that a debate on the OSA, an act created in 1923 by a colonial regime, would be the ``greatest compensation'' for the seven months he spent in jail.

Mr. Gilani said he believed that it was because he was a journalist that his case got so much attention leading to its withdrawal. There were, however, tens of people languishing in jail for offences under the OSA, many of whom like him had committed no crime.

Mr. Gilani's lawyer, V. K. Ohri, drew attention to the fact that while there had been just 60 cases filed under the OSA in 25 years, in a fraction of that time, one police department — Delhi Police's Special Cell — had filed seven cases under the Act. Mr. Ohri said that the OSA was an anachronism and should be amended keeping in view the access to information that technological advances allowed.

Mr. Gilani also called on the press not to play into the hands of an establishment which thrived on mis-reporting. The coverage of the early weeks of his case, he said were ``a lesson to all journalists, particularly my younger colleagues'', on how not to report.

Describing the 18-hour-long Income-Tax raid on his home, during which he was locked inside a room for hours, he said he was amazed to find television channels reporting variously that he was absconding or that his wife was absconding. After he was formally charged, newspapers reported that he had confessed to being an ISI agent, while what he had told the court — that the charges were frivolous and that the so-called secret document was published — were never recorded.

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