Indian police yesterday said that they had arrested a TV news anchor and charged him with abetment to suicide in connection with the 2018 deaths of an interior designer and the designer’s mother.
Mumbai police officer Sanjay Mohite said that the charges against Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami were linked to the deaths of interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother, which police had determined to be suicide.
A suicide note found by the police and determined to have been written by Naik said that he took his life because Goswami and two others owed him a huge sum of money, and had refused to pay it back.
Goswami has denied the allegation.
Over the past few months, Goswami has run wall-to-wall coverage against the Mumbai police, accusing them of mishandling an investigation into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, a popular actor.
Goswami is known for aggressively backing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his nationalist policies during his nightly TV shows, often shouting down opponents.
Critics have accused Republic TV of pandering to Modi’s agenda at a time when other media outlets say press freedom is under threat.
Republic TV in a statement called Goswami’s arrest a “black day of India’s democracy” and alleged he was physically assaulted by police.
His channel showed video of Goswami being forced into a police van by officers outside his residence in Mumbai.
Senior members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party were quick to condemn Goswami’s arrest.
Indian Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal called the arrest a “fascist move” and “a sign of undeclared emergency.”
“We must all stand up against this attack on India’s democracy,” Goyal wrote on Twitter.
“You may not like him, you may not approve of him, you may despise his very existence but if you stay silent you support suppression,” Indian Union Cabinet Minister Smriti Irani wrote on Twitter.
Goswami is not new to controversies. He has been charged in two other cases with inciting communal tensions and promoting hatred between religious groups.
Mumbai police last month also accused Republic TV of rigging the rating system, a major factor in what a channel can charge advertisers.
Goswami and his channel have denied all the charges.
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