MHA denies reports taking action against Assam Editors

New Delhi, Apr 19 (UNI) The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday denied that it had asked the Assam Government to take action against the Editors opposed to the Citizenship Bill.
``This is absolutely baseless, a mischievous interpretation of the facts and it is mischievous to suggest that Central Government has asked Government of Assam to initiate action against any Editor or any media person in Assam”, The Home Ministry said in statement here.
“This is to clarify that Union Home Ministry has not asked the State Government of Assam to initiate any inquiry against any Editor or any member of the press and media”, it said.
“The factual position is that one Mr Vinay Joshi with the address of Ratnagiri, Maharashtra sent a public grievance petition to the MHA on the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) on February 14 related the issue of Citizenship Amendment Bill- 2016 stating that the issue has been exploited by different militant groups like ULFA and the media has propagated militant ideology to give fresh boost to the militant groups”, a senior official privy to this issue said.

“A very large number of such petitions and grievances on a host of issues were received in the Ministry on a daily basis on CPGRAMS. The annual figure for 2018 was 33,000. Every such petition is routinely forwarded to the Ministries and States concerned”, the official added.
Following this standard practice, Mr Vinay Joshi’s petition was routinely forwarded to Government of Assam. No inquiry of any kind has been ordered by the Ministry. No report has been called from the Government of Assam in the matter, the officials explained.