A Delhi court on Monday sent to 14 days’ judicial custody a journalist for allegedly fabricating an RTI reply and publishing a news report claiming that the government had been discriminating against Muslims in their recruitment as yoga trainers in the Ayush Ministry.
Pushp Sharma, who was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Ashok Kumar on expiry of his two-day judicial custody, was sent to Tihar Jail till May 30 in the case registered days after his report ‘We don’t recruit Muslims: Modi govt’s Ayush Ministry’ appeared on Milli Gazette, a fortnightly English language newspaper. The Delhi-based journalist was arrested on May 14 on charges of cheating, forgery and promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc in the case registered a Kotla Mubarakpur Police Station here.
A senior police officer had said that Sharma had been arrested in 2009 on the charge of extorting government officials by threatening sting operations on them. There were also allegations that Sharma even tried to extort police officers on one occasion.
Sharma had claimed that he filed an RTI with the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) enquiring about the Muslim teachers and trainers recruited by the AYUSH Ministry for foreign assignments during the World Yoga Day last year.
