Gowtham Pothagoni, a journalist with the digital news portal Telugu Scribe, was released on bail on Tuesday, October 15, eight days after he was arrested in Telangana. Gowtham had been charged with ‘attempting to create political tensions and promoting disharmony among the public’ and ‘insulting Telangana government and Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’.
The journalist was released on bail after the court ordered him to ‘execute a personal bond of Rs 10,000’ with two local sureties. His bail was also incumbent on depositing his passport along with the sureties and an assurance that he would not leave the country without the court’s permission.
Further, Gowtham was directed to appear every Monday before the investigating officer for a period of three months or until the chargesheet in his case is filed. The court additionally directed him to co-operate with the investigation, and not be involved in “any similar kind of offenses.”
Gowtham was arrested by Telangana police for posting a video on March 12 on his X account (formerly Twitter). The video was of a farmer residing in Nalgonda, with the caption: “During a leisure trip of mine, I faced a heartbreaking incident yesterday. A farmer named Mallayya from Mushampalli village in Nalgonda district asked me to personally record a video of him and send it to KCR garu.” KCR — K Chandrashekhar Rao — is the former Chief Minister of Telangana and the chief of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) party.
In the video, the farmer, Mallaya, speaks highly of KCR, and BRS policies like the Rythu Bandhu — a farmers investment support scheme introduced by BRS. He goes on to say he is debt ridden under the current regime. Telangana Assembly elections were held in November 2023 and Congress’ Revanth Reddy took over as Chief Minister of the state on December 7, 2023.
The video went viral on social media. Telugu Scribe is a channel critical of the Congress in Telangana and supportive of the opposition BRS. The journalist was arrested based on three FIRs filed in September solely based on this video. It's unclear why the complaints were filed in September over a video that went viral in March.
The three FIRs against Gowtham were registered under Sections 353(1)(b) (creation, publication, or distribution of false information, rumors, or statements that are intended to incite public mischief), 353(2) (Statements conducing to public mischief), 352 (intentional insults that are intended to provoke a breach of peace or the commission of another offense), 193 (Liability of owner, occupier, etc., of land on which an unlawful assembly or riot takes place) and 196 (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS); and Section 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.