WSJ deputy bureau chief not being deported, says govt after Prasar Bharati goofs up on Twitter

The broadcast body tweeted that The Wall Street Journal’s Eric Bellman was being deported for ‘anti-India behaviour’ but MEA stepped in to say no such action was being taken.

Prasar Bharati House | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint.in

New Delhi: Prasar Bharati, the parent body of state-owned broadcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR), once again cooked up a storm Friday evening, tweeting that the South Asia Deputy Bureau Chief of the The Wall Street Journal, Eric Bellman, was being deported for “anti-India behaviour”. 

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) later denied initiating any such action. 

“A complaint was registered against Mr.Eric Bellman by a private individual on Government’s Online Grievance Redressal platform. Referring the complaint to the related office is a routine matter as per standard procedure. No such decision on deportation has been taken by the Ministry of External Affairs,” said Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs.

According to a Twitter thread by the Prasar Bharati News Service (PBNS), the MEA had asked the India Embassy in the US to “look into the request” for “immediate deportation” of Delhi-based Bellman. The thread has now been pulled down. 

The Prasar Bharti tweets that have now been pulled down | Screenshot

 The PBNS also said that the complaint against Bellman was registered on 2 March for “misreporting on Delhi riots, particularly about the killing of IB officer Ankit Sharma”. 

PBNS also said, quoting sources, that the complaint was a private one and that no decision has been taken. “As a matter of routine processing, the matter was referred to the appropriate department for examination and nothing further needs to be read into the matter,” PBNS said quoting sources.

It later tweeted the MEA’s clarification, as the issue began inviting widespread criticism. 

Clarification from @MEAIndia on earlier tweets by PBNS that had wrongly interpreted a routine procedure related to a private complaint https://t.co/7gF9raTnpV

— Prasar Bharati News Services (@PBNS_India) March 13, 2020

The MEA also clarified that by ‘US’ the PBNS meant ‘under secretary’ of the Embassy in America.

Not the first time for Prasar Bharti

This is not the first time that the public broadcaster behemoth has gone after foreign publications’ coverage of sensitive news on India.

The broadcaster’s Twitter handle has repeatedly attacked major foreign publications ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Guardian (UK) and Le Monde (France) for publishing highly critical reports of the Modi government.  

This also includes a warning against The Guardian for “provoking communal hatred in India” ahead of the Ayodhya verdict and even calling Pakistan PM Imran Khan as the “troll Prime Minister of terroristan”.   

It recently tweeted about multiple complaints against foreign publications and channels, including Huffington Post and Al Jazeera, with the hashtag #NewsJihad.

Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati had also last week even declined the BBC’s invitation to attend the ‘BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year’ awards night, on the grounds that the British broadcaster’s coverage of the recent Delhi riots was “one-sided”, “without context” and insinuated “communal behaviour”.   

“Wish they had cross-checked before publishing such a news item. The Wall Street Journal is a respected journal across the globe. This sort of mistake gives out a wrong impression to the world. They should check their facts before putting out anything,” said S. Venkat Narayan, president, Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia (FCC).