T P Nandakumar- deliberate conspiracy ?
T P Nandakumar is the Chief Editor of the much popular CRIME magazine in Kerala and around. On 03/07/2010 he was arrested by the Kerala Police. The charge against him is to attempt defaming an NRI, Alexander from Kaduthuruthi, Kottayam through his portal crimenewsonline.com. Alexander complained that Nandakumar has published defamatory article about him in the CRIME magazine and its online edition. The act has raised many eyebrows and that for obvious reasons. Kerala Cyber Cell officially says that "He has been arrested on the basis of a complaint given by an NRI. It has been alleged that the portal accused the NRI of money swindling and running a sex racket.” On a complaint by Alexander to DGP, Kerala Jacob Punnoose the police arrested him. But why any hue and cry? And why any disagreement with such an act? Aren’t journalists often believed to be doing such things where they are accused of maligning or defaming a person or blackmailing them? But then Nandakumar is not the usual journalist. He is one who has become a household name, a celebrity and an ideal for many because of so many of his fiery and remarkable deeds. And hence he is also an eyesore for politicians of all hues and for many religious leaders as well. CPM party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan would have been living in peace but for Nandakumar who single-handedly took up the SNC Lavlin case on which a CBI probe was ordered and Vijayan was Charge-sheeted, thus suffering irreparable loss. He certainly has to pay the price for this. When this story was published in 2001, his office was badly ransacked. Again, it is he who brought forth the Kozhikode Ice cream parlour sex racket expose, which shook the then Congress-led UDF government with the news report linking Muslim League leader P K Kunjalikutty to it. CRIME had also carried stories against CPM leader M A Baby accusing him of financial irregularities. Again, it carried the story that Congress leader Shobana George was behind a fake intelligence document that linked her party collegue and Union minister K V Thomas to a hawala racket. He is equally responsible for bringing bad luck to IPS officer Tomin J Thachankary, against whom the Union home ministry has ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency for allegedly meeting certain terror suspects during his visit to Qatar in January this year. Others include V.S. Achuthanandan (accused of money-laundering), Ezhava leader Vellapaly Natesan (links with liquor mafia), noted Malayalam writer and critic Sukumar Azhikode (Nandakumar published letters sent by the writer to three of his 'ex-flames', written on official notepads of educational institutions he headed) and former Union minister P.J. Kurien (involved in a sex scandal). In a story “Smitten By Smut” in the Outlook, Manoj Nair wrote about him- “Some readers respect him for his courage and sense of timing. He has taken on almost all the bigwigs in politics.” In a Writ before the Kerala High Court, Chief Justice V K Bali had clearly said- “.: T.P. Nandakumar, Chief Editor of a magazine called 'Crime' is stated to have established reputation in investigative journalism and exposure of corruption at different levels”. If we analyse the case Nandakumar on the charge of violating Section 66 of the Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008. Section 66 is about any person, dishonestly, or fraudulently, doing any act referred to in section 43. Section 43 is about damage to computer, computer system, etc. It relates to access to a computer system, introducing computer virus, damaging computer network etc, disruption of computer, denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorized to access any computer, tampering or manipulating any computer etc. Thus prima-facie, there does not seem to be much coherence and correlation between the offences as defined in sections 66 and 43 of the IT Acct and the one that the official spokesman of Kerala Police says. This makes the entire matter even more fishy. We need to keep an eye over the entire matter which presently seems to be a case of harassment of a sincere and brave journalist. Dr Nutan Thakur, Editor, Nutan Satta Pravah, Lucknow # 94155-34525
