New Delhi: Day after an Uttar Pradesh journalist was booked on grounds of ‘criminal conspiracy’ for reporting that children in a government school were bring fed salt with rice and rotis under the midday meal scheme- a top official has added to the show of apathy. Also Read - India's Covid Vaccine Latest News: Phase-3 Trial of Covaxin to Begin in UP's Lucknow, Gorakhpur From October

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Pawan Jaiswal, a journalist with a Hindi daily has been charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating and providing false evidence. Also Read - Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Meets Bollywood Personalities Over Film City in Uttar Pradesh's Noida

The FIR also named one Raj Kumar Pal, a representative of the village pradhan, who provided the inputs to the journalist.

The complaint filed by Prem Shankar Ram, Block Education Officer, Mirzapur read that the journalist and Raj Kumar Pal hatched a conspiracy to defame Uttar Pradesh government and the mid-day meal scheme.

The complainant said that Pal should have arranged for vegetables when he saw children having meals with just salt- instead of tipping off a journalist.

The government officials also posed why Pawan Jaiswal, a print journalist, shot a video instead of taking pictures of the students.

Anurag Patel, a top Mirzapur government official was quoted by NDTV when he opined, “There is a different way to make news. If you hear the audio, someone (the village head’s representative who has been charged and arrested) is calling him and saying come here and make a viral video and come and be part of a conspiracy.”

He added that the print journalist need not have taken videos and just taken some photographs and written about like- which according to Patel, now tantamounts to conspiring against the government.

Meanwhile, over 100 journalists protested at the Mirzapur collectorate officer over the FIR filed against their colleague.