C'garh: Journalist booked for social media post on encounter

An FIR has been registered against a television journalist in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district over his alleged "objectionable" social media post on an encounter between the police and naxals in March this year, police said on Monday.

An FIR has been registered against a television journalist in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district over his alleged "objectionable" social media post on an encounter between the police and naxals in March this year, police said on Monday. A complaint was lodged against the journalist, Manish Kumar Soni, by corporator Alok Dubey.

On March 25, Soni had allegedly posted photographs of security personnel who were killed in a gun battle with Maoists on March 21 on his Facebook account with a comment in Hindi, a police official said. The investigation into the complaint concluded that Soni's post allegedly amounts to insult to a tribal community and was an attempt to provoke them, the official said.

No arrest has been made and further investigation is underway, he said. Soni was booked under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration) and 505 (2) (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC on Sunday at Ambikapur police station, said Inspector General of Police (Surguja range) Ratanlal Dangi.

On March 21, seventeen security personnel, belonging to District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Special Task Force (STF), were killed in the encounter with ultras near Minpa village of Sukma district.