In an act that has caused much surprise and alarm, the JJ Marg police have booked a newspaper vendor for selling the January 17 issue of the Urdu daily Avadhnama, which carried a photo of the cover of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo with the controversial cartoon of Prophet Mohammed.
In an act that has caused much surprise and alarm, the JJ Marg police have booked a newspaper vendor for selling the January 17 issue of the Urdu daily Avadhnama, which carried a photo of the cover of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo with the controversial cartoon of Prophet Mohammed.
Legal experts and newspaper vendors across the city said they were unhappy with the action taken by the police and wondered how a vendor could be held responsible for the content in a newspaper. The complainant has, however, stated that the vendor knew and understood Urdu and knew about the article and, thus, should have refrained from selling the newspaper.
'Sold it knowingly'
When mid-day spoke to officials from JJ Marg police station, they said that the case had been filed because the vendor sold copies of the newspaper knowingly. Off the record, however, some police officials admitted that it had been registered due to pressure from members of the community.
We have not made any arrests and further investigations are on." A source from the police station, however, said, "There was outrage after the incident and there was a lot of pressure from the community to file a case against the vendor. They alleged that the vendor understands Urdu and knew about the front-page article 'against Prophet Mohammed'.
Additional Commissioner of Police (South region) Krishna Prakash said, "Based on the complaint, an FIR has been registered. The complainant has alleged that despite knowing the language and the fact that the circulation of the said newspaper would hurt religious sentiments, the vendor went ahead and sold the newspaper."
6 Teenagers Convicted In France Over Teacher's Beheading In 2020 Police Case Against Publisher Over Prophet Mohammed "Photo" In Textbook Microsoft Blames Iranian State Actors for Cyberattack on Charlie Hebdo Trump's Vice President Pick Reveals How His Hindu Wife Helped Him "Someone Must Have Doubted...": Doctor On Trainee IAS Officer's Disability Claim Trainee IAS Officer Puja Khedkar Called Cops Home, Spoke For 2 Hours Jaro Education Works Closely With Senior Executives From Corporates To Build Future Leaders "He'll Never Come Home": Captain Thapa, Killed In J&K Encounter, Remembered Engineer Stole NEET Question Paper From Exam Body's Trunk, Arrested By CBI Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.