NEW DELHI: A journalist in India is facing charges over a report he wrote saying Muslims were banned from being yoga teachers under the government policy.
Pushp Sharma’s report appeared in March in the Milli Gazette, a newspaper aimed at India’s Muslim community.
It quoted what was said to be a government document that banned Muslims from travelling abroad to teach yoga for last year’s World Yoga Day. Sharma faces charges for fabricating the documents, which he denies.
His report was based on what he said was an official reply from a government ministry that promotes yoga and ayurveda medicine.
The report said that, after several queries to the ministry, it replied saying that none of the 3,841 Muslims who had applied to become yoga teachers had been hired up to October 2015.
A letter printed alongside the article, purporting to be from the ministry, said that 711 Muslims had applied to travel abroad as instructors during the first World Yoga Day last June, but none was selected, “as per the government policy.”
The Mili Gazette confirmed Sharma was arrested on Saturday morning. Its editor Zafarul Islam Khan said the charges were” clear attempts to stifle the freedom of the press.”
