New Delhi: Reacting to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami’s arrest, Union Home Minister Amit Shah , Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday described it as “an attack on press freedom” in Maharashtra and said it reminded of the “Emergency days”.
Terming the arrest of journalist Arnab Goswami as a “blatant misuse of state power”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said the “attack on free press must be and will be opposed”. The home minister also slammed the opposition parties, saying Congress and its allies have “shamed democracy” and that the incident “reminds us of Emergency”.
Union minister Smriti Irani condemned the arrest saying if those in free press don’t stand up in support of him then they are tactically in support of fascism.
Apart from them, law minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad described the arrest of Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami as “seriously reprehensible, unwarranted and worrisome.”
He also questioned the silence of the Congress leadership when its government in Maharashtra was “blatantly suppressing freedom of press.” Police on Wednesday arrested Goswami in Mumbai for allegedly abetting suicide of a 53-year-old interior designer, a police official said.
“The arrest of senior journalist Arnab Goswami is seriously reprehensible, unwarranted and worrisome. We had fought for freedoms of Press as well while opposing the Draconian Emergency of 1975,” Prasad said in a series of tweets.