No Evidence, 3 UP Journalists In Prison For Paper Leak Out After A Month

Three journalists, who were arrested in the Balia district of Uttar Pradesh a month ago for their alleged role in the paper leak of the Class 12 English examination, walked out of prison today.

The journalists were granted bail as the police were unable to produce any evidence against them to prove their involvement in the paper leak, said advocate Akhilendra Chaubey, who represented them in the court.

The three journalists - Ajit Ojha and Digvijay Singh, who work with the Hindi daily Amar Ujala, and Manoj Gupta, who works with another Hindi newspaper, were arrested for their alleged roles in the leak of the Class 12 English question paper of the Uttar Pradesh Board in March this year.

Visuals outside a prison in the Azamgarh district, where the journalists had been lodged, showed them walking out to a grand welcome from their colleagues

The police have made more than 50 other arrests in the same district in connection with the leak of the now rescheduled paper.

"Three cases had been filed by the police in which the journalists had been named as accused. The court had found that offences like cheating are not made out against the accused. The court had also come down hard on the police for using additional sections of the law as a tool for keeping the journalists in jail ", said advocate Chaubey in a statement.

The arrested journalists had maintained that they were being framed by the district administration because of their reportage

"I activated my sources and got hold of the leaked (Class 10) Sanskrit paper and sent it to my newspaper. It got published in the newspaper. The next day, the newspaper also printed the leaked (Class 12) English paper. This exposed the Ballia administration. These people got angry with us and we were framed in a criminal case. This is an assault on the freedom of the press," Digvijay Singh, one of the arrested journalists, said in a statement.

"I am being asked repeatedly where I got the papers from and I said I got it from my sources. But these people have framed me instead," Mr Singh added.

The administration has claimed the Class 10 Sanskrit paper was not leaked.

The second journalist who works with the same newspaper claimed local officials asked him for a copy of the leaked Class 12 English question paper and he sent it to them in good faith.

"I came to my office but later the cops barged in and treated me like a criminal. I was pushed and shoved," Ajit Ojha said in a video statement.

Their arrest had been strongly condemned by the Press Club of India which had called the move "arbitrary" and demanded their immediate release. Journalists in the district have been protesting continuously for a month against their arrest.

In a statement, the Press Club of India had said, "It is highly condemnable on the part of Ballia district administration to arbitrarily arrest those Ballia-based journalists who had exposed the leak of 12th examination English paper. It is just akin to a case of the kettle calling the pot black."

"Of late, it has been observed that the Uttar Pradesh government is going hammer and tongs to threaten and actually arrest those mediapersons who don't toe the line of the government thinking over the issues of policy measures. And, the sycophant and more-than-eager Uttar Pradesh Police and bureaucrats don't waste time in arresting mediapersons at the first-available opportunity to please powers-that-be," the statement said.