New Delhi: When a leading newspaper item contradicted a key aspect of the Uri attack that a senior army officer had provided to the media, the government attempted to muzzle the press.  The Defence Ministry has told editors “all contents relating to the Indian Army, irrespective of ‘source’ of inputs, and intended to be published, should be pre-verified from the offices of media centres in commands & corps HQ or from this office through your defence correspondents”.

Ministry of Defence was responding to a story in the Indian Express on September 21. It contradicted the claim made by Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, director general of military operations, to journalists the day before that the weapons recovered from the four slain terrorists who killed 18 Indian soldiers at Uri on September 18 bore “Pakistani markings”.

Writing in the Indian Express, Sagnik Chowdhury and Praveen Swami reported that:

Four Kalashnikov rifles used by the terrorists, and handed over by the military to investigators Monday, bore no markings or insignia of any kind, sources familiar with the ongoing investigation said. There were also no military markings on barrel-fired grenades destroyed by the Army Monday, or on launchers fitted on the Kalashnikovs.

The defence ministry now says the DGMO ‘never made this claim’ – and cites the formal press release he had issued on the evening September 18 to buttress its point. But  several media outlets had quoted the general saying so for more than a day, without the MoD or General Singh feeling the need to issue a denial.

‘The Wire’ in a post has stated it has learned that not only has the director, media in the MoD, Abhijit Mitra – who is a serving colonel in the Indian army – now demanded that the newspaper “publish an errata and apology for having published a report full of falsehood” but that henceforth it submit reports on the army to be “pre-verified” by the relevant corps or command media office.

The MoD’s demand has no legal basis – no government body has the right to censor or screen news before it is published, and freedom of the press is enshrined in the law via the constitutional right to free speech, says ‘The Wire’

  India, military