After Sand Mining Exposé in The Wire, Reporter Complains of Harassment, Intimidation
Ever since the series
came out, Sandhya Ravishankar says she has been harassed by online trolls and
on the phone, receiving multiple threats of violence.
Chennai-based senior
journalist Sandhya Ravishankar, who published a four-part series on
Tamil Nadu’s sand mafia in The Wire, has alleged that she has been
constantly harassed by supporters of S. Vaikundarajan (owner of the largest
sand mining conglomerate in the country, who is mentioned extensively in
the articles). The series, published in late January this year, documented
the illegal sand mining, political collusion, and methods used to suppress
competition in the south and is the outcome of four years of investigative
journalism.
Ever since the series
came out, Ravishankar says she has been harassed by online trolls and on the
phone, receiving multiple threats of violence. In a letter to the
Press Council of India, Ravishankar has said, “I have been harassed online with
trolls on social media using foul language against me, calling me a “corrupt”
journalist, a “fake” journalist etc. My mobile number was published on Twitter and
Facebook by the anonymous trolls supporting Mr S. Vaikundarajan, the largest
beach sand miner in the country (refer to Part 03 for details about him) – my
mobile number was published with a note in Tamil saying that I was
“anti-Jallikattu” and asking people “not to call her”.
Subsequently I received
a flood of abusive and threatening calls – unknown people threatening to put
chilli powder inside my private parts, threatening to beat me up and abusing me
in the filthiest manner possible.” Ravishankar had mentioned some of this
harassment as well as previous attempts to intimidate her in part four of the series, on her experience
of writing this exposé.
Online blogs have also
come up in both Tamil and English that target Ravishankar, using terms
like the ‘Phoolan Devi of journalism’. Ravishankar filed a
complaint with the Chennai city police earlier this week, in addition to one
with the cyber wing when her phone number was released on the internet last
month. Vaikundrajan’s legal
team has also sent Ravishankar a notice saying they will be filing a defamation
case against her, but the case has not been filed as of yet. According to her
letter to the Press Council, Ravishankar is not the first journalist to face
this kind of intimidation from the sand mafia in Tamil Nadu.
“It is a situation of
great concern that a rich, powerful and politically connected man is using all
means to harass, stalk and intimidate an independent journalist such as myself
into not writing anything about illegal beach sand mining, which is an issue of
size and scope beyond any scam the country has seen so far, with concerns over
national security thrown in.
Tamil magazine Vikatan,
The Hindu (Tamil) and others are also at the receiving end of the
miner’s ire and false defamatory claims when they refer to the subject of
illegal beach sand mining. Most mainstream newspapers and publications are
afraid to write on this subject, fearing exactly such harassment and legal
issues.
If this continues, I
am afraid that the freedom of journalists to write on core key issues in Tamil
Nadu will face a death knell. Every individual has the right to file any number
of cases, of course. But slander and falsities being circulated viciously on
social media and through WhatsApp are issues that cannot be dealt with easily
or stopped. It will only lead to a chilling effect on every journalist who
wants to take up a tricky and complicated issue that is of prime social
importance and in public interest.
…Today this is
happening to me. Tomorrow it could happen to any journalist in Tamil Nadu or
elsewhere in the country.”
