Hyderabad: The LB Nagar police on Wednesday registered an FIR against a female journalist after an assistant engineer at the operation section of the Hayathnagar sub-division of the Saroornagar division of the Telangana State Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TGSPDCL) lodged a complaint against her for ‘falsely alleging’ that power was interrupted for seven hours in the area.
In his complaint, M. Dileep, the complainant, stated that he ‘received a message from higher officials that one person with username @revathitweets posted a message stating that 07 hours power was interrupted in the LB Nagar area.’
He further went on to say that after enquiring with data sheets from substations from the last six months, he noticed that there was no power interruption, and concluded that this was ‘merely a false allegation and intentionally defaming the state government and the TGSPDCL.’
Following the registration of an FIR, Revathi posted on X, “MY MEDAL OF HONOR: AN FiR. 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!”
Tagging her post to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, and Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, the woman journalist asked: “Is this your stance on media independence? Is your government trying to silence journalists who expose the truth? If you do believe in democracy, stand with us when we fight for justice, and protect the freedom of the press! PS: I chose not to post the video of the harassed woman to protect her privacy. If this is the hooliganism officials unleash on the media, who will protect the people?”
However, the matter started when Revathi, on June 18, posted on X saying, “Harassment c/o Telangana power & Co! A woman from LB Nagar, #Hyderabad was terrorized by an unexpected incident today.”
The issue began on June 18 when a woman tweeted about frequent power cuts in her locality. After her tweet, a lineman dropped by her residence, demanding her to delete the tweet.
However, she escalated the matter to the electricity department and complained to them about the lineman dropping by her residence. But the official asked her to call them and not tweet about it because there was too much pressure on the electricity employees from the higher-ups.
“When I spoke with her, she said she is already worried since she lives in a rented accommodation and the TGSPDCL employees already know her address. I hope the department & the minister in-charge understands that this is harassment. The woman raised a complaint only after suffering the power cut several times. Sending a person home, demanding one to delete the social media post is harassment,” Revath tweeted.
Another user tagged along in the conversation and posted, “Happened with me too” and shared a screenshot of his conversation with the TGSPDCL.”
However, the power company had responded to Revathi’s tweet asking her to share details about discrepancies.
"Dear @revathitweets Please share the consumer details to official phone number of CMD, TGSPDCL’s shared to you in DM (to maintain anonymity of the consumer) We take the above allegation seriously, will conduct an independent inquiry and take appropriate action."
