In JNU Case, Cops Visit Homes of Journalists Including NDTV Reporter

New Delhi: Over the past 24 hours, police investigating the raising of anti-national slogans at an event in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) visited the homes of a number of journalists covering the case.

One of them is NDTV's Manas Roshan - three plain-clothes policemen turned up, unannounced, at his home at around 9:30 last night. Manas was not present at the time; cops asked his brother, Nikhil Roshan, questions.

At least three national newspapers - The Hindu, Hindustan Times and Times of India - have reported on the questioning of journalists at their homes. The report in The Hindu says that the police obtained call records of all those who had tried to contact the missing JNU students, accused of sedition. Five of them - Umar Khalid, Anirban, Ashutosh, Rama Naga and Ananth Prakash - surfaced on the campus last night.

Two days back, a journalist with a web news portal was detained in Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh and was later interrogated in Delhi for calls made to Umar Khalid.

NDTV journalist Manas Roshan didn't make any call to any of the students who went missing.

Curiously, cops did not appear to know that he worked for NDTV. When his brother informed them, they expressed surprise and left soon after.

Police sources told NDTV that journalists will not be bothered again.

While it is not uncommon for investigators to seek information on cases from journalists reporting it, it is highly unusual for them to arrive at their houses, unannounced, and in some cases, at a fairly late hour.