CIDsleuths raids Sakshi TV office

Hyderabad, Jan 9: The Crime Investigation Department officials on Saturday evening swooped on Sakshi Television news channel office on Road No 1 in the posh Banjara Hills area of Hyderabad city and began quizzing senior news persons within less than 12-hours of the channel being charged with promoting acts prejudicial to the harmony under sections 153A and 505-2 of the IPC and Section 16 of the Cable TV Networks Registration Act, 1995.

The Cid sleuths, accompanied by a posse of Andhra Police and reinforcements drawn from Karnataka Reserve Police, seized the news channel’s systems, computer peripherals and video footage and other material relevant to the telecast of the speculative story connected to the conspiracy theory behind former chief minister Rajasekhar Reddy’s death.The quizzing by senior Cid personnel continued for over an hour amid protests from the staff of the Sakshi news channel. They also exhibited bills questioning the fault of the TV channel.

Media personnel of all hues in the city, however, condemned the raids on the office of the news channel which telecast a controversial report on the death of Rajasekhar Reddy attributing it to a conspiracy hatched by the directors of Reliance Group of Industries.The Sakshi channel seemed to have taken a cue from another Telugu news channel, TV-5 which actually broke the story on the conspiracy theory on Friday evening drawing its inputs from a defunct website and an erstwhile online newspaper theexiled.com.

TV5’s senior executive editor Brahmananda Reddy and input editor Venkata Krishna were arrested. The video footage aired by the channel and that of another channel NTV were also seized by the police before the cases were handed over to the Cid.Meanwhile, Reliance Industries group also strongly condemned the charge linking it with Rajasekhar’s death in a copter crash stating that ``..it is the dirty handiwork of our business rivals in cahoots with TV 5.’’