Before dawn on Wednesday, Kerala Police walked into a live newsroom, reviving an old fear about who gets to silence the press. A Special Investigation Team searched five locations tied to Reporter Broadcasting Company (RBC), which runs Malayalam channel Reporter TV, including its Kochi headquarters and the homes of its promoters, the Augustine brothers.
The SIT is probing alleged fraud, GST evasion and financial irregularities around the cancelled Lionel Messi–Argentina match, a flagship Kerala event that collapsed over contract and funding disputes.
Police say they had a magistrate’s warrant and seized no phones, only asked staff to set them aside. But the channel says officers entered the newsroom around 5 am, stayed 90 minutes, disrupted a live broadcast and pulled the News Editor from his desk mid-air – a move, the Opposition says, carries “the stench of the Emergency.”
Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan led the charge.
Vijayan Demands Explanation For Assault On Media Independence
“The high-handed intrusion of the Kerala Police into Reporter TV’s Kochi newsroom to disrupt live broadcasts is absolutely abhorrent. Barging into the facility in the early hours, a police team forcibly confiscated journalists’ phones and unleashed an hour-and-a-half-long siege of intimidation—even filming the staff on site,” Vijayan said.
He tied it to the darkest chapter of India’s democratic past. “This state-sponsored heavy-handedness carries the unmistakable stench of the Emergency. What we are witnessing in Kerala today mirrors the brazen crackdowns on press freedom seen in BJP-ruled states and Union-controlled Delhi, reminiscent of the raid on NewsClick, where equipment was impounded and the editor jailed. Kerala will never tolerate such ruthless attempts to gag the fourth estate,” the former Kerala Chief Minister said.
He demanded answers from the top. “The Chief Minister and the Home Minister owe the public a direct explanation for this assault on media independence. I unequivocally denounce this despicable attempt to strangle press freedom,” he added.
CPI Rajya Sabha MP On Messi Row
CPI Rajya Sabha MP P Sandosh Kumar backed the concern, but drew a careful line between the controversy and the crackdown on media. The Messi affair, he granted, was a genuine embarrassment. “In fact, the controversy related to the visit of internationally acclaimed football icon Messi is a shame to the prestige of the state of Kerala. This could have been avoided by the so-called sponsors and related officials. In a way, this has tarnished the image of the state of Kerala,” he said.
Accountability, he insisted, must follow. “Those who are responsible for this thing must be held responsible. That accountability and responsibility must be fixed… Whatever may be, truth should come out. Law should take its own course. Those guilty must be punished. And related frauds, for example, these GST things, black money related issues — truth should come out, like in every other case,” Sandosh Kumar said.
But the probe, he warned, must not become a weapon against the press. “In the name of that, media must not be punished. Media must not be tarnished. Reporter channel is one of the prominent Malayalam channels which stands for secularism… its secular credentials are very high. So, Reporter channel and its interest must be protected,” he said.
And he pressed the distinction home. “I would like to find a differentiation between these two. Those in management and those people responsible should explain what happened… And if their defence is not proper, they must be punished,” he said — the fate of a newsroom, he made clear, cannot be folded into a fraud probe.
The Opposition’s message converges on a single demand: let the truth about the Messi controversy surface, fix accountability, punish the guilty — but not by putting a free press in the dock. The pressure now falls on the Chief Minister and Home Minister to explain why a financial investigation needed officers inside a live newsroom before dawn.