{"id":142009,"date":"2020-11-14T03:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T21:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=142009"},"modified":"2020-11-14T03:00:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T21:30:39","slug":"hc-declines-to-quash-fir-against-shillong-times-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2020\/11\/14\/hc-declines-to-quash-fir-against-shillong-times-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"HC declines to quash FIR against Shillong Times editor\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>SHILLONG, Nov 13:<\/strong> The Meghalaya High Court has refused to quash a police complaint against veteran journalist Patricia Mukhim for her Facebook post which allegedly incited communal tension between the tribal and the non-tribal communities in the state.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Disposing of a petition filed by Mukhim, the editor of The Shillong Times newspaper, Justice W Diengdoh said that the investigation agency should be given a free hand to probe into the matter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In the event, the investigating agency is required to be given a free hand to investigate the matter and to come to its own conclusion in due process of law.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Consequently, I find no merit in the instant petition for exercising powers under Section 482 CrPC. This petition is accordingly hereby rejected,&#8221; the judge said in the 10 November order.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mukhim had hit out at the Lawsohtun village dorbar (council) on Facebook for failing to identify the &#8220;murderous elements&#8221; after five boys were attacked at a basketball court in July this year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Eleven people were picked up and two were arrested in the case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;There is an attempt to make a comparison between tribals and non-tribals vis-\u00e0-vis their rights and security and the alleged tipping of the balance in favour of one community over the other.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;This in the opinion of this court would fall on the mischief of Section 153 A (a) IPC as it apparently seeks to promote disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between two communities,&#8221; the court said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Despite repeated attempts, Mukhim could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The police complaint was filed against Mukhim by the village council on 6 July for her post on social media, alleging that her statement incited communal tension and might instigate communal conflict.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">She was subsequently booked under Sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc), and other provisions of the IPC. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SHILLONG, Nov 13: The Meghalaya High Court has refused to quash a police complaint against veteran journalist Patricia Mukhim for her Facebook post which allegedly incited communal tension between the tribal and the non-tribal communities in the state. Disposing of a petition filed by Mukhim, the editor of The Shillong Times newspaper, Justice W Diengdoh [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-142009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}