A team of Crime Investigation Department (CID) carried out a search in the office of Sakshi TV which is one of the three TV channels against which police booked cases for airing a controversial news report that led to attacks on Reliance retail chain on Thursday night.
The CID team seized a computer, a hard disk, run order and the record of stories carried by the channel from 6 p.m. on Thursday to 2.30 p.m. on Friday, the channel’s Chief Executive Officer Priyadarshini Ram Reddy told media persons later. He said the police did not inform him of intentions to arrest anyone though the channel was booked on the same charges as those framed against another television channel whose editors were arrested on Friday night.
Mr. Reddy also said all employees on the floor where the studio was located were examined by the CID. The officials studied the process of telecast by the channel during their three-hour examination. Mr. Reddy said he did not think the case against the TV channels would stand legal scrutiny as they had aired a “newsworthy opinion.” He took exception to the government not blocking the web page of the Russian blog that initially put out the news.
“We just air the story that we pick up. We picked up the story from other channel and were late,” he said. He wanted the government to put to rest the doubts over the death of the former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
Property damaged
He faulted the government for not initiating action when public property was damaged in the last two months during the Telangana and unified Andhra Pradesh agitations. “The government had not arrested anyone. The day before yesterday, when private property was damaged, the authorities were in immense hurry to arrest people,” he said.
