On Monday, 27 April, Zubair Ahmed, a journalist in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, was arrested by the police for a tweet in which he questioned why the authorities had allegedly asked a family to home-quarantine, based merely on a phone call between them and someone who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Four days before that, on 23 April, it was Andrew Sam Raja Pandian, the founder of Coimbatore-based web portal SimpliCity, who was arrested by the police for reports on his website about a shortage of food for student doctors working at the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital, as well as alleged siphoning of rations and provisions meant for the poor.
In neither of the two cases have the local police expressly shown that what the journalists said was untrue. Instead, in what could become a dangerous trend, they are seeking to use legal provisions relating to the COVID-19 crisis to target these journalists – only to stop them from asking uncomfortable questions.