The Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has expressed his concerns over Republic TV Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami’s claims that he was assaulted in jail and was not allowed to meet his family. He spoke to the state home minister Anil Deshmukh on Monday and conveyed to him that his concern over the health and security of Goswami in jail. He also asked Deshmukh to allow Goswami’s family to meet him.
Goswami was talking to Republic TV reporters from a van while he was being shifted from a prison quarantine centre to Navi Mumbai’s Taloja jail on Sunday. He told reporters that he was not allowed to talk to his lawyers and that his life is at stake in the jail. He said he had requested the jail authorities to let him talk to his lawyers but they denied. He accused the jail officials of delaying the process and keeping him in jail. In the video, he folded his hands pleaded bail. He said his life was in danger and he was assaulted by Alibaug jailer on Saturday.
Goswami’s wife, Samyabrata Ray Goswami in a statement said her husband, who has spent four nights in judicial custody, was being dragged and lugged by Maharashtra Police in a blacked-out police van to Taloja Jail. He was repeatedly saying his life is under threat but to no avail. He repeatedly said that the jailer assaulted him after he asked for access to his lawyers, which was shockingly denied. He detailed the assault being inflicted on him during this custody and pleaded, hands folded, to the Supreme Court for intervention and bail.
The decision of shifting the 47-year-old from Alibaug jail was taken after he was allegedly found using someone’s phone as his own phone was seized.
Goswami and two others were arrested on November 4 in connection with abetment to suicide of an interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik in 2018. A suicide note by Naik had claimed that Arnab Goswami and two others owed him Rs 5.4 crore and had refused to pay him back, thus forcing him to take his own life.
The journalist and two others were sent to 14-days judicial custody till November 18.