Uttar Pradesh: Lucknow based journalist alleges target harassment by state gov’t

Image: Newslaundry

Sanjay Sharma, the editor in chief of 4PM, Lucknow’s only evening daily, has accused the Adityanath led government of Uttar Pradesh of “targeting” him since 2017. A Newslaundry report says that the senior journalist has alleged the government used many ways of this harassment including the suspension of government ads, raids on his office, and threats and “intimidatory tactics”.

The Hindi eveninger 4PM began in 2013, and reports on crime and politics across Uttar Pradesh. According to the reports, with a team of 12 staffers “it’s one of the few newspapers in the state that takes on the Adityanath government.” However, some other local journalists claim Sharma was once “close” to the Samajwadi Party. Sharma has been the editor-in-chief of 4PM since 2013, and has worked in Rashtriya Sahara, ETV and Star News in his three-decades in journalism. 

However, the newspaper coverage has reportedly always held the government accountable, says its editor. According to its report from August 2018, for instance, when an SUV got stuck in a sinkhole on the Agra-Lucknow expressway, 4PM’s investigation found that the responsibility for the construction of the expressway lay with PNC Infratech, owned by the brother of the BJP mayor of Agra. Newslaundry detailed how 4PM questioned the state government on why the expressway, two years after it was built, was not being maintained. “In June the same year, 4PM ran a front-page story on a Lucknow resident who was allegedly solicited for a bribe of Rs 25 lakh by chief minister Adityanath’s principal secretary. In June 2017, 4PM published “exclusive” excerpts from letters written by an IAS officer Bhawani Singh about alleged corruption under IAS officer Renuka Kumar, posted in the women’s welfare department,” stated the report.

According to Sharma “his troubles began in 2017” after he criticised the Adityanath led government’s “anti Romeo squads” that were reportedly set up to curb crimes against women. On July 16, Sharma claimed a group of men entered the newspaper’s office in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar and “verbally abused” employees and “misbehaved” with female staffers. He filed a police complaint, and said this was due to “recent reportage by the newspaper”, three persons were arrested but later released on bail stated the report. The report added that on August 26, 2019, Sharma received a notice from the economic offences wing telling him to appear at its office as they had allegedly received a letter claiming that Sharma had accumulated wealth disproportionate to his income. Sharma was reportedly interrogated subsequently at the agency’s office. The NL reports quotes Sharma’s lawyer Mohammad Haider saying while the agency “began questioning him about having dozens of bank accounts,” he clarified that he had just one account in his name and two others in the name of his firm. Haider said Sharma has received “multiple such notices” over the years. 

According to the news report, the notice was issued a day after “Sharma had addressed a press conference in Delhi about attacks on journalists in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida”. Sharma was later granted interim protection in the matter by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, stated the news report adding that UP government, filed a counter affidavit claiming that Sharma had “amassed a lot of unaccounted money with the help of unscrupulous officials”. The case is awaiting trial.

Sharma has said that the state government advertisements to 4PM hava also almost dried out. “All we have got in the name of ads since 2017 from the state government is worth Rs 50,000,” he said and also claimed that certain officials in the secretariat told him to “tone down content” in order to get ads from the government. On allegations of being close to Samajwadi Party government, Sharma claimed that was not the case and that “in 2013, he had even filed a public interest litigation seeking the dismissal of IAS officer Rajiv Kumar, who had been named in a plot allocation scam along with former chief secretary Neera Yadav.” He added, “As a journalist, people from different parties often come to my office including SP, BJP and BSP.” He has also said that the Adityanath regime has also not renewed his state accreditation as a journalist from 2017 onward, even though he’s been accredited since 2010. This also deprives him of facilities for journalists such as subsidised railway fares, medical treatment and housing. 

Recently, the National Alliance of Journalists (NAJ), Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ), the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), and the Press Club of India, held a protest meeting following the death by suicide of senior UNI photojournalist T. Kumar. The media association also raised the issue of increasing attacks on journalists’ rights and dignity. The Central government’s new accreditation policy was also discussed once again as many journalists have called it out as “being totally biased to end independent journalism and ensure a new era of government controlled journalism.” 

He told NL that in 2019, he received a notice from the state government asking him to vacate the house allotted to him in Butler Palace colony and that he was also allegedly “threatened by a member of the Hindu Yuva Vahini on social media, who tagged Adityanath in a post asking that action be taken against Sharma for “illegally occupying the house”.” In April 2021, Sharma wrote a four-page letter to Adityanath alleging harassment by state authorities and requesting him to intervene. He hasn’t heard from the chief minister since then.

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