Hyderabad police registered a case against a woman journalist for tweeting about the city’s power outages. Five days prior, the journalist Revathi reportedly posted on X (formerly tweeter) under the account “@revathitweets” about extended power outages in the city.
Following the tweet’s viral success, TGSPDCL Assistant Engineer, Autonagar Section, Dileep filed a case at the L B Nagar Police Station in Hyderabad, claiming the handler had deliberately and falsely accused the State government and the TGSPDCL of defaming them. Invoking Sections 505 of the IPC and 66 (D) of the IT Act, the police launched an investigation.
The journalist Revathi P has been named in a First Information Report (FIR) following a complaint. The complaint claimed that a “Hyderabad resident” had falsely reported seven hours of power outage. Reacting to the registration of an FIR against her, Hyderabad-based journalist Revathi described it as “her medal of Honour ” for her journalistic endeavors.
Taking to X, she questioned the double-speak of the Congress party on the issue of press freedom and selective application of law. She wrote, “In a BIZARRE move, an FIR has been lodged against me while the actual culprits from Telangana Power & Co, who harassed a female consumer in broad daylight, walk free!”
She tagged Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Telangana CM Revanth Reddy and asked, “Is this your stance on media independence? Is your government trying to silence journalists who expose the truth?
Former Minister and BRS leader KTR asked whether it is the Police department that is running the Energy department or if there is a Police Raj in the state.
BJP IT-cell head Amit Malviya took a jibe at Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Khata Khata’ freebies election promises and wrote, “Woman harassed in Congress-ruled Telangana for complaining against extended power cut.”
Several X users, including many Hyderabad-based journalists and prominent politicians, lambasted the Congress party for filing an FIR against a journalist and threatening her for airing public grievances concerning the Electricity department.
Many of them argued that even if her claims were not true, the electricity department could have clarified them with rejoinders rather than filing a criminal case over highlighting issues of power cuts and subsequent harassment of customers by power department personnel.