Chhattisgarh cops reach UP to arrest TV anchor over ‘out of context’ Rahul Gandhi video

PTI, Jul 5, 2022, 12:11 PM IST

A police team from Chhattisgarh landed in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday morning to arrest a TV news anchor from his house over a case lodged against him for playing a clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi out of context.

The anchor, however, claimed that the police from the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh were not following the due law of informing the local police first.

“Chhattisgarh Police is standing outside my house to arrest me without informing the local police, is it legal,” Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan tweeted in Hindi and tagged UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the state’s police in the post.

The police from Chhattisgarh’s Raipur, where an FIR has been lodged against Ranjan, has not been able to arrest him but said it had shown him the arrest warrant and sought his cooperation in the probe.

Responding to his tweet, the Raipur police tweeted: “There is no such rule to inform. Still, now they are informed. Police team has shown you the court’s warrant of arrest. You should in fact cooperate, join in the investigation and put your defence in court.” Earlier on July 2, Ranjan had apologized during his TV show for “mistakenly” playing Gandhi’s statement out of context by linking it with the Udaipur murder case.

“It was a human error for which our team apologetic. We apologise for it,” he had tweeted in Hindi.

The out of context video was used by several people including BJP leaders to attack Gandhi and the Congress party in the wake of the gruesome beheading of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur, Rajasthan.