Mumbai police arrested right-wing Indian news anchor Arnab Goswami – a vocal supporter of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – on Wednesday in relation to a two-year-old case of abetment to suicide.
His arrest in India’s Maharashtra state, ruled by the BJP-rival Shiv Sena party, immediately drew criticism from the BJP, whose leaders condemned the act as part of a political vendetta against Goswami and his recent criticism of Shiv Sena leaders.
Goswami was arrested at his residence in Mumbai on Wednesday morning in connection with the recently reopened suicide case of interior designer Anvay Naik. In a 2018 suicide note, Naik allegedly named Goswami as having refused to pay him for work he had done for Goswami’s television network, Republic TV. The network released a statement in 2018 denying the allegations as unfounded.
“Police had closed the case last year, but on the directions of [Maharashtra] state home minister Anil Deshmukh, they moved the court earlier this year and got it reopened. Police said Naik’s daughter Adnya had met the minister in May this year,” the Times of India noted on Wednesday.
Goswami is known for his support of Prime Minister Modi and his ruling BJP, a Hindu nationalist party. He hosts a daily news show on Republic TV, an Indian TV channel he founded, and frequently invites on BJP opponents and critics of the government to discuss politics. On his show, Goswami recently accused India’s Maharashtra state government of involvement in the June 14 death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Police have said Rajput’s death in Mumbai, located in Maharashtra state, appeared to be a suicide. However, Goswami and his network insinuated that Rajput’s death may have been a murder in which the Maharashtra government, ruled by the BJP-rival Shiv Sena party, was possibly involved.
Several leading members of the national ruling party denounced Goswami’s arrest on Wednesday as an act of “revenge” by Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena party against the BJP for the journalist’s recent allegations.
Indian Interior Minister Amit Shah, a long-time ally of Prime Minister Modi, wrote on Twitter: “This attack on free press must be and WILL BE OPPOSED.”
India’s Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar echoed Shah’s sentiments, condemning the arrest on Twitter as an “attack on press freedom.”
Indian Railways Minister Piyush Goyal declared Goswami’s arrest a “fascist move” and “a sign of an undeclared emergency.”
Republic TV claimed Goswami was physically assaulted by Mumbai police during his arrest. The network aired video footage of him being physically forced out of his home and into a police van by police officers.
“Later on Wednesday, Goswami filed a ‘habeas corpus’ petition in the Bombay [Mumbai] high court challenging what he termed as his ‘illegal arrest’ and said a closed case had been reopened only to falsely implicate him,” the Times of India reported.