#BARKHA DUTT YOUNG CODE#
We urge the Uttar Pradesh prosecutor’s office to immediately dismiss this accusation, which is not based on any credible evidence, and furthermore violates the criminal procedure code by denying Barkha Dutt access to the case.”Īccording to the police, Dutt is accused under criminal code article 153 of “wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot,” which is punishable by up to a year in prison. “This is clearly a case of judicial harassment aimed at silencing any independent investigative coverage of this case.
“The police are deliberately lumping together unverified comments by politicians with the MoJo Story’s rigorous journalistic reporting,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. Dutt’s request for a copy of the FIR has been refused by the police, thereby preventing her from legally disputing the accusation. The MoJo Story report never claimed this, but the FIR says it did. The FIR names Dutt’s Twitter account, along with seven other Twitter accounts, including those of several politicians who claimed the girls were sexually assaulted. They were found poisoned in a field in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district after going missing on 17 February. The accusation concerns Dutt’s coverage of the death of two teenage girls who are Dalits (members of the Indian group formerly known as “untouchables”). Barkha Dutt, who often reports for the Washington Post and runs a YouTube local news channel called MoJo Story, told RSF that she regards the accusation brought against her, in the form of a police “First Information Report” (FIR) on 21 February, as a “harassment attempt” and “pure intimidation.”
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