A local court in Hyderabad Monday granted bail to two YouTube journalists who were arrested on March 12 for airing abusive and derogatory content against Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. They are likely to be released Tuesday afternoon.
Rejecting the police custody of Revathi Pogadadanda, 44, and Tanvi Yadav alias Bandi Sandhya, 25, the judge granted bail to them asking them to furnish two sureties of Rs 25,000 each. The court directed them to surrender their passports and appear before the police twice a week for the next 90 days.
Pogadadanda and Yadav of the YouTube channel Pulse Digital News Network were arrested under sections 67 of the I T Act, and sections 111(organised crime), 61(2)(criminal conspiracy), 353(2), and 352 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). They were remanded to 14 days judicial custody earlier.
The petitioners’ advocate Kiran Kumar Gannamaneni argued that the arrest violated Supreme Court guidelines and that the charges were politically motivated and false.
Pogadadanda’s advocate Jakkula Lakshman said she was granted bail as the investigation into the case was complete. He said the court had issued a show cause notice to the Hyderabad cyber crime police station, to which no explanation has been filed so far. He alleged that the police misbehaved with the two women journalists.
On Monday afternoon, former minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLA K T Rama Rao along with party leaders visited Pogadadanda and Yadav at Chanchalguda Central Prison for women.
Speaking to the media, Rao claimed that as many as 11 journalists have been jailed by the Congress government since it assumed office in December 2023. He said Pogadadanda and Yadav were arrested for showing public anger against the government.
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Pogadadanda’s Pulse Digital aired a short clip of a farmer talking about the Congress government’s failure to fulfil several of its election promises including the Rs 4,000 pension and the Rythu Bharosa scheme.
Pogadadanda and Yadav were arrested after a Congress party activist lodged a complaint.
Revanth Reddy spoke about the content in the Telangana Assemblyand said people posing as journalists to post “vicious campaigns” against public representatives and their family members “should be stripped and paraded in public”. Calling for strict legal action against such online content, Reddy also accused the rival Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) of paying them to record the video and post it online.
The police claimed that the alleged video was shot at the head office of the BRS in Banjara Hills in February, and released on March 10 as per an orchestrated plan to defame the chief minister ahead of the Budget Session of the Assembly. The police also claimed the two journalists were given monetary incentives by the BRS, and that they used to identify and provoke people to defame the government.
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