Arnab Goswami smashes Congress’ absurd charge against him; urges media to introspect

It is beyond absurd to suggest that expecting India to strike back at Pakistan, after the Pulwama attack, was a crime. It was publicly available information and thousands of journalists reported, wrote, broadcast and analysed in the same direction after Pulwama. There are thousands of articles from that time suggesting a hard and tough response from the Indian Forces. The Government stated the same in interviews to our Network and elsewhere, which were broadcast across the world. Two things were made public at that time, officially— 1. That there will be an extremely tough military retaliation by India. 2. That the time and place of the retaliation will be chosen by India. 

I am horrified that the Congress party actually thinks that any journalist in India expressing the views publicly stated by the Government is committing a crime. In the last 10 months, from an attempted acid attack on me to framing of fake and false cases to arresting me illegally (in a case which the Supreme Court said had no prima facie merits) to assaulting me, my wife and my son, and slapping cases against them to filing an omnibus case against my entire newsroom and all my editors to putting me in jail on the trumped up charges to assaulting me in custody to interrogating my colleagues for 500 hours to whiplashing my colleague Ghanshyam with a chakki belt in custody and now joining hands with Pakistan to questioning my love and commitment to this great nation. I have been through it all. 

Millions of Indians have joined hands with me today. I have the support of every nationalist Indian, and I don’t need a certificate from anyone else. 

To the media in India: I request a moment of introspection. You may not agree with my views, you may not agree with my ideology, you may not agree with my Network— but if you are quiet today when a journalist is targeted for a WhatsApp chat on a publicly available information— then think about the precedent being set. I have faced enough incarceration, I’m ready for some more. 

To all my supporters: Let us rally now to fight for the truth, with ALL our might. 

Satyamev Jayate! 
Bharat Mata Ki Jai! 
Jai Hind!