Gowtham Pothagoni, a journalist with digital news portal Telugu Scribe, was arrested in Telangana on Monday, October 7, and has been charged with ‘attempting to create political tensions and promoting disharmony among the public’ and ‘insulting Telangana government and Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’. This comes seven months after the journalist posted a video on his X (formerly Twitter) account where a farmer expressed his resentment towards the Telangana government, led by the Congress party. The arrests were based on four FIRs filed against Gowtham in September, three of which were solely based on this video. It's unclear why the complaints were filed in September over a video that went viral in March.
A total of four FIRs were registered against Gowtham — three naming him and the fourth FIR naming both Gowtham and his employer, Telugu Scribe. “Gowtham was picked up in Bengaluru by the police on Monday and was brought to Hyderabad on Tuesday. He should have been produced before the magistrate earlier but they didn’t bring him to the magistrate until 5.30 in the morning,” Gowtham’s mother told TNM. Gowtham is currently lodged in Chanchalguda jail.
On March 12, 2024, Gowtham posted a video on X 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 first and second FIR were registered on September 28 at Kharkana and Vanasthalipuram police stations based on the complaints of a businessman named Shaik Ashraf and Anumakonda Bhargav, a student. The third FIR against Gowtham was registered on September 29, based on the complaint of a farmer named I Rama Chandra Reddy at Manchal police station. All three complaints were identical, and said: “Some persons posted certain social media posts that insulting our Chief Minister of Telangana Sri A.Revanth Reddy garu and Telangana Government by derogatory comments
and such posts had a potential to create political tensions and enmity between groups and also promote disharmony among the public and which may leads to the law and order problem in the society. They are spreading unnecessary rumours which are misleading the public due to which public peace and tranquility may be disturbed.” (sic)
A fourth FIR registered by the Cyber Crime police was based on a complaint by a person called J Sanjeev Reddy, and named Telugu Scribe along with Gowtham. This complaint accused the channel of posting derogatory comments against the CM and demanded that three URLs be deleted. One of them is the video of an elderly man in Adilabad verbally abusing Chief Minister Revanth Reddy for demolitions.
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.