The Maharashtra State Government are facing the heat of the Central government, media fraternity and even from the social media after it arrested Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami. In a lightning strike operation, the Maharashtra Police on Wednesday morning swooped on the home of Republic TV owner and Chief Editor Arnab Goswami in the 2018 double-suicide case of a businessman in Raigad.
Around 8 a.m., a team of over a dozen senior police officials from Mumbai and Raigad, several of them armed -- led by former ‘encounter specialist' and now with the elite Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) Sachin Vaze -- descended on his Worli home in Raheja Complex to pick him up.
After a lot of hullaballoo for nearly 15 minutes at the flat, the police team managed to take away Arnab, once dragging him by his hair and by his arm, and bundled him into a waiting police van which whisked him off to Raigad, with a camera team from Republic TV trailing. A senior police officer Sachin Vaze said that Goswami was arrested in the abetment to suicide case of 2018, which had been closed earlier and has now been reopened.
Interestingly, the case closed long back, however, the Mumbai Police reopened the case and arrested Arnab Goswami. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday targetted Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi over the arrest of Arnab Goswami by the Maharashtra Police.
While coming in support of Goswami, the BJP said that in 'our democratic setup, independent media is a pillar but now it is being bullied'.
Many accused the Maharashtra State Government of fulfilling its vendetta.
Finally, Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut spoke to the media and said, "The law is followed in Maharashtra. Police can take action if they have evidence against anyone. Since the formation of the Thackeray government, no action has been taken against anyone for revenge. The Centre in the 6-7 years has taken similar action. I can give you 100 examples. But I don't believe the game. Police should do their job irrespective they are Delhi Police, Lucknow Police, Bihar Police or Mumbai Police. If something wrong has been done then go to court and express your opinion. Journalism is not alive only because of one journalist. I am myself a journalist who writes against the government. But no one has criticized me or taken action against me. In the Modi government, the journalist and their freedom are safe."