Varsity vacancies: Scribe among 4 held for 'false' news

The Ballari Rural Police on Thursday arrested four persons including a news channel reporter on the charge of “misusing eletronic media” by not reporting true facts about appointments to Vijayanagara Sri Krishnadevaraya University.

The arrested are Veeresh Dani, a reporter with a television news channel, Nagabhushan, a former reporter, Veeresh and C M Manjunathaiah. The action came following a complaint lodged by the Vice Chancellor of the varsity, Prof M S Subhash.

According to the complaint, a private channel had aired a piece of news alleging irregularity in appointment of non-teaching staff for the university.

A person by name C M Manjunathaiah, a candidate for the post of second division clerk, downloaded the admission ticket for recruitment examination from the website of the university.

He photocopied the document and pasted the photographs of Governor Vajubhai Vala on one copy and that of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on another copy. However, the said Manjunath did not appear for the recruitment examination.

“However, in the news aired on the channel it was alleged that the system in the varsity is so poor that anyone can write the examination,” the
VC said.

Following the VC’s complaint, the police arrested Manjunathaiah, who named the reporters during questioning.

Superintendent of Police Lakshman Nimbaragi told DH that following the information disclosed by Manjunathaiah, the reporter and three others were arrested.