Lawfare, Summons/Notices – Journalists

The Maharashtra police have booked Rahul Zori, a reporter with the news channel TV9 Marathi, for reporting on irregularities in the running of relief camps for migrants in Shirpur tehsil, Dhule.

On May 16, the channel aired a report by Zori showing how the camp at Hadakhed village near the state’s border with Madhya Pradesh existed only on paper. It was one of three such camps set up in Shirpur as per an order signed by the tehsildar, Aaba Mahajan, on March 31. None of these camps are functional now, according to the report.

The Hadakhed camp was set up in the District council Marathi School but when Zori visited it, there was nobody around and the gates were locked. There wasn’t even a signboard identifying it. When Zori questioned Mahajan about this, he claimed to have spent Rs 46 lakh running the camp. However, the tehsil officials, with the help of social organisations, were still providing relief to migrant workers. That very day, Mahajan claimed, they had distributed khichdi to about 500 people. In all, with the help of social groups like Mee Shirpurkar, they had helped about 80,000 people, he added.