The Mumbai Police on Monday grilled controversial pro-BJP Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami grilled for more than 12 hours in a case relating to hate speech and disparaging comments on Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Goswami had informed on Sunday that he had been summoned by the Mumbai Police to appear for immediate interrogation. This came just days after FIR actress Kavita Kaushik slammed Goswami for mocking Sonia Gandhi.
On Monday, before appearing at Mumbai’s NM Joshi Marg Police Station, Goswami was seen speaking to not one but two reporters from his own channel. This became a butt of jokes on social media many likening the visuals to Farhan Akhtar’s delusional character in Kartik Calling Kartik.
Goswami said that ‘the truth will win’ before he entered the police station for a long grilling by cops. His TV channel flashed a photo of Goswami greeting the camera by raising his fist to claim that his grilling was over.
However, Republic TV’s tweet posted at 6.33 PM said that Goswami was still being grilled more than 9 hours after he entered the police station. Goswami could not present his debate show for Republic Bharat at 7 PM and joined his show only after 10 PM.
Goswami had courted controversy last week after he was accused of communalising the lynching of two Hindu monks in Maharashtra’s Palghar. This despite Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh making it abundantly clear that the killers of the two monks were also Hindus. Congress supporters filed dozens of FIRs against Goswami after he directly blamed their leader Sonia Gandhi for the Palghar lynching.
Goswami had to approach the Supreme Court, which moved with lightning speed to hear his case. As expected, the top court gave him three weeks of protection from arrest but asked the Republic TV founder to cooperate with the investigation.
His rant against Sonia Gandhi had earned him plenty of criticism even from non-political figures. TV actress Kavita Kaushik, who acted in popular TV series FIR, had lashed out at him as she wrote, “So these days all it takes to turn a blatant fabricated lie into believable truth is simple make a video and post it !? Wow! Law/ investigation n things like that should head to the beaches for a long vacay.”
Another tweet by Kavita had read, “Seriously, how is this allowed ?? And students have FIR against them !? But this is OK ??? Seriously?”
Goswami had launched Republic TV with the help of BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar in 2017.