The Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps and several media associations on Thursday, October 10, expressed concern over the arrest and 10-day custody of The Hindu’s Senior Assistant Editor Mahesh Langa. Langa, along with 10 others was arrested in an alleged case of Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion.
“Even as we feel the law should be allowed to take its own course, we feel that a custodial interrogation of Mahesh Langa is a procedural overreach and perhaps a means to harass an individual whose name doesn’t feature in the primary FIR,” the statement from the media groups read. While the FIR names DA Enterprise and Langa’s cousin Manoj, it does not name Mahesh.
Langa was arrested on Monday by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch after an FIR was registered against several individuals and entities, including a firm named DA Enterprise allegedly owned by the journalist’s cousin Manoj Kumar. The crime branch has alleged that the company is among 200 other entities which tried to evade paying GST and charged them with fraud.
Police have argued that Langa was unable to explain the presence of Rs 20 lakh recovered from his home. Defending the journalist, Langa’s lawyer Vedanta Rajguru said the money was kept in case of emergencies and wasn’t connected to DA Enterprise.
Following the arrest, The Hindu’s editor Suresh Nambath said, “We would like to state at this time that we appreciate his professional work for The Hindu as the Gujarat correspondent based in Ahmedabad. We do hope that no journalist anywhere is targeted for their work, and we expect the investigation to be conducted fairly and quickly.”