Delhi violence: India moves to deport Wall Street Journal journalist for ‘anti-India behavior’

Ministry of External Affairs on Friday asked the Indian Embassy in the United States to look into the request for the immediate deportation of The Wall Street Journal’s South Asia Deputy Bureau Chief Eric Bellman who is based in India, for “anti-India behavior”, Prasar Bharati News Services reported.

A complaint in this connection had been lodged with the Ministry of External Affairs on March 2 after police complaints had been lodged against for The Wall Street Journal ‘misreporting on Delhi violence’, particularly about the killing of IB officer Ankit Sharma.

In the story, the WSJ journalists reported that the brother of Ankit Sharma said that the crowd shouted “Jai Sri Ram” before they dragged him to his death.

According to the WSJ report, ‘They came armed with stones, rods, knives and even swords; they shouted ‘Jai Shri Ram’, some even wore helmets,” Ankit’s brother Ankur Sharma told the WSJ journalist in a telephone interview.

The Wall Street Journal is a U.S. business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City.

Eric Bellman currently works as a deputy bureau chief, South Asia at The Wall Street Journal.

Sources say that the complaint is filed by Legal Rights Observatory- LRO- a Hindu nationalist associated group-.

They had sought deportation of WSJ’s Eric Bellman and a petition seeking the same was written to the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar by LRO’s Vinay Joshi.

Organiser, an affiliated publication of RSS claims the same.

Following the MEA action, LRO has expressed their thanks to Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV.

“Thankful to Republic TV for opening fire assault against fake news pedalled by WSJIndia’s Eric Bellman , efforts paying off gradually,” they tweeted.