india

Updated: Apr 19, 2019 20:54 IST

The Home Ministry on Friday denied that the Assam government had been asked to act on a complaint against journalists. “This is an absolutely baseless and a mischievous interpretation of the facts,” the home ministry said.

The factual position is that one individual, Vinay Joshi from Maharashtra, sent public grievance petition to the home ministry on the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 stating that the issue had been exploited by different militant groups such as ULFA and media has propagated militant ideology. This petition was forwarded to the state government in the normal case.

Here is the full text of the statement:

“It has been reported in a section of media that Union Home Ministry has asked Government of Assam to take action against the Editors opposed to the Citizenship Bill. This is absolutely baseless and a mischievous interpretation of the facts.

This is to clarify that Union Home Ministry has not asked the State Government of Assam to initiate any enquiry against any Editor or any member of the press/media.

The factual position is that one Shri Vinay Joshi with the address of Ratnagiri, Maharashtra sent a public grievance petition to the MHA on the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) on 14.02.2019 related the issue of Citizenship Amendment Bill- 2016 stating that the issue has been exploited by different militant groups like ULFA and the media has propagated militant ideology to give fresh boost to the militant groups.

A very large number of such petitions/grievances on a host of issues are received in the Ministry on a daily basis on CPGRAMS. The annual figure being 33,000 for the year 2018. Every such petition is routinely forwarded to the Ministries/States concerned.

Following this standard practice, the petition of Sh. Vinay Joshi was routinely forwarded to Government of Assam. No enquiry of any kind has been ordered by the Ministry. No report has been called from the Government of Assam in the matter.

It is mischievous to suggest that Central Government has asked Government of Assam to initiate action against any Editor or any media person in Assam. It is reiterated that it is standard practice to forward every petition received on CPGRAMS to the Ministry/State Government concerned.”