Chennai: Nakkheeran Gopal had checked in for his 8.50 morning Indigo flight and was waiting in the boarding area when assistant CoP Vijayakumar, who is in charge of airport security, walked up to him and told him the deputy commissioner was waiting outside and wanted to have a word with him. Gopal accompanied the officer after telling his two colleagues, who were also travelling with him, to wait for him.
Triplicane deputy commissioner Selvanagarathinam along with Zam Bazaar police station inspector Shanmugasundaram, besides three other cops, all in plainclothes, were waiting outside. The DC told Gopal that he was being detained following a complaint from the Raj Bhavan and that the airlines had been informed about his being offloaded from the flight.
There was some exchange of words and Gopal reached for his mobile to make a call. One of the cops pounced on him to snatch away the phone and the group quickly began to push the journalist towards a waiting police vehicle. Sensing he was being taken away for arrest, Gopal shouted at a group of men who had come to the airport to see him off telling them he had been arrested ‘because the Governor has complained’ and that they should inform all, including the two colleagues waiting for him to join them on the flight. They should also cancel their trip to Pune and return to the Nakkeeran office to await further instructions, he told them before being whisked away.
He was driven to the Chintadripet police station for questioning while the police prepared the remand statement and the state counsel got ready to present its case before the 13th city magistrate at nearby Allikulam court complex. Help arrived fast for the detained editor and MDMK chief Vaiko was among the first to come, demanding to meet his 'client' in his capacity as a lawyer. He flaunted his lawyer's card but that did not help as the adamant cops refused to let him through the barricade. He sat on the road in protest and police arrested him and took him away.
Meanwhile, a large number of slogan-shouting journalists blocked the road outside the police station condemning the police and the government for the arrest and demanding that Gopal be released. While they could not get the cops to relent, the court ultimately obliged and struck down the section 124 detention, thereby protecting the freedom of the Fourth Estate to express.
"If the magazine articles were defamatory, there are other provisions in law to punish the guilty; not section 124", said the protesting journalists. To this the politicians added another interesting argument: "The police took no action against BJP's H Raja who abused the judiciary. They took no action against S Ve Shekher for speaking ill of women journalists. Yet they have arrested a journalist because the Raj Bhavan has complained..."
