The accused, allegedly involved in a case of, rape, and blackmail of college students, is escorted by police after being produced before the district court, in Bhopal. File.
| Photo Credit: ANI

A petition has been filed in the Madhya Pradesh High Court against the State Government and two Hindi dailies for allegedly running a “communally inciting coverage” and using words like “love jihad” to defame the Muslim community while reporting on a recently-exposed Bhopal rape and blackmail scandal involving multiple college going women. 

The writ petition, seen by The Hindu, seeks criminal case against the editors of the two newspapers and directions for the government take preventive measures against divisive and communal coverage of issues by the media. 

The petition was filed on May 19 by a Bhopal resident of the Muslim community, who wishes to remain anonymous, his lawyer Advocate Deepak Bundele said. 

The matter pertains to multiple sexual assault and blackmail cases lodged by six girl students of a private college over the past one month. The police have so far arrested five men, Including the prime accused Farhan, a former student of the same college, for allegedly befriending them with fake identities, sexually assaulting them and recording their private videos to blackmail them into introducing their friends to more men. 

Several local media outlets also quoted police sources to claim that the accused were involved in forced religious conversions of the survivors. 

A National Commission for Women probe panel, that visited Bhopal earlier this month, also claimed in its findings that the accused may be linked with a “drug smuggling or organised criminal network”, as per some reports. 

The petitioner had also filed a complaint at Bhopal’s Aishbagh police station on April 30 and alleges that no action was taken in the matter. 

“The State Government and the Police have been made Marty in the plea because they failed to take any timely action in the matter. We have attached a copy of the police complaint with the plea,” Mr. Bundele said. 

The petition cites multiple news articles and headlines by the two outlets accusing them to be communally inciting in nature.

“Through the news published and broadcast by the said newspapers, an attempt is being made to hold all Muslims responsible for the rape and porn incident with the students of a Bhopal-based private college, instead of limiting it to the accused,” the petition reads, while saying that the matter should be seen as a strictly criminal case and the accused should be tried as per law. 

“But the two newspapers published from Bhopal are continuously using words like love jihad in the context of crime, which neither has any legal definition nor is contained in any law till date, and all Muslims are being targeted for the said crime. Whereas the word love jihad is not mentioned in the Quran,” the plea further argues, accusing the publications of trying to harm the nation’s sovereignty and spread hatred. 

“They are playing with the religious beliefs of the applicant, which is a violation of Article 14, Article 15, Article 19, Article 21 and 25 of the Fundamental Rights granted to the petitioner by the Constitution of India,” it claims.