Pawan Kalyan to seek police probe into Telugu media’s ‘slander’ campaign against him

Actor-politician Pawan Kalyan has recently been training his guns on the owners of TV9, ABN Andhrajyothi and Mahaa News media channels through Twitter. On Tuesday, he said that he is contemplating approaching the Telangana police to ask them to probe the alleged ‘malicious’ campaign they have been carrying out against him for the past six months. After actor Sri Reddy abused the Jana Sena Party chief in public for suggesting that she should have approached the police regarding her allegations of sexual harassment in Tollywood, Pawan warned her. But apart from that, he also chose to take on the media channels that were constantly airing programmes on sexual exploitation in Tollywood and giving Sri Reddy the space to share her plight. Sri Reddy had called Pawan Kalyan motherf*****r and showed him the middle finger before going on to slap herself with her footwear for calling him ‘Anna’ (brother) in the past. Pawan took offence at the channels that repeatedly aired the abuse hurled and the offensive gesture made by Sri Reddy against him. Taking to Twitter relentlessly since April 20, Pawan has been alleging a ‘slander’ campaign against him by what he describes as the “dream team” – TV9, ABN and Mahaa News – at the behest of the ruling Telugu Desam Party. The actor accused the AP Chief Minister’s son, Nara Lokesh, of having links with the three TV channels, claiming that he had devised the campaign to bring him down. Despite a legal notice from Srini Raju, who is an investor in TV9, asking Pawan Kalyan to delete the tweets accusing him of being part of the campaign, the actor justified his tweets and said that he was expressing his “opinions”, “beliefs” and “feelings” and claimed that the tweets did not insinuate anything against Srini Raju. After taking on Srini Raju, the actor launched an attack on the CEO of TV9, Ravi Prakash. In yet another series of tweets, Pawan Kalyan shared photos of Ravi and criticised him. He then declared that he would seek a police investigation into the alleged slander campaign against him and said that he would send legal notices to the “TDP backed media channel heads”. We will be sending Legal notices to these TDP backed media channels heads and their shareholders and investors and their board too. We will give them sufficient time to respond.— Pawan Kalyan (@PawanKalyan) April 24, 2018 I am contemplating to request TS police for an investigation into the 6 month slander campaign. I am for sure all the names of these characters both men & women who came out to malign me will be eventually lead to Amaravati..— Pawan Kalyan (@PawanKalyan) April 24, 2018 Journalists condemn attacks on media Meanwhile, the Telangana Union of Working Journalists (TUWJ) condemned the baseless allegations and attacks on media houses. TUWJ leader Devulapalli Amar said that criticism against media without any evidence would not be tolerated. He also condemned the recent physical attacks on journalists by self-proclaimed Pawan Kalyan fans. He also said that all the channels had blurred the offensive gesture and beeped out the abusive word used by Sri Reddy, in accordance with media ethics.