Actress Kangana Ranaut slammed the Mumbai Police and the Maharashtra Govt for the illegal detention of Pradeep Bhandari, a Consulting Editor of Republic Network Channel. Kangana took to twitter to voice out her concerns and called out the Mumbai Police "for creating an embarrassing situation for themselves & making the nation ashamed."
On Saturday, Pradeep Bhandari a Consulting Editor of the Republic Network Channel was summoned by the Mumbai Police to the Khar Police station. He landed up at the station around noon, having come from Bihar. High drama played out in the evening on the sets of Arnab Goswami show as he covered the happenings Live on his show, from outside the Khar Police station where Pradeep Bhandari was held for more than 9 hours in custody by the police, illegally. He had earlier been granted an anticipatory bail for the same issue by the High Court. However, the Police showed total disregard for the fact and surrounded him at the station, and put him in a room where he was interrogated for 9 hours, without food and water, as per the reports. He was not allowed to call a lawyer, or anyone else, in fact, all his phones were also seized and handed over to the IT team.
It was much later, when the entire team of reporters from Republic Channel entered the Police station and started questioning the Police, about their actions prompted by Arnab Goswami. His persistence paid off, in the end, as Pradeep Bhandari was finally let off and he relayed all that had happened to him to Arnab Goswami on the live show.
According to report by Republic Network, "Alleging that Bhandari pushed cops while he was reporting on BMC's demolition of actress Kangana Ranaut's office at Bandra on September 9, Mumbai Police on Saturday evening, detained Republic Consulting editor Pradeep Bhandari when he presented himself at the Khar police station. This move comes inspite of Bhandari being granted anticipatory bail by a Mumbai court. They filed a complaint against Bhandari - under Articles 188 - (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of IPC and 37(1), 135 of the Bombay Police Act."
There was a massive uproar from the people across the country.
"I felt I lived in a democracy in Maharashtra, but I got to see true fascism today. The way they detained me undemocratically, they tried to arrest me, they tried to physically assault me. Under the name of summons, they tried to interrogate me in custody. All my phones have been seized. when I asked why are you seizing my phones, then they said that 'they got a call from top people'. The more you try to harass Republic, we will speak the truth louder," said Bhandari.
