Reporter’s diary: When cop threatened journo with bribe demand charge

A few days ago, a police station in central Chennai received a complaint regarding the kidnap of a woman. As is the case nowadays, all the details were shared by the source in a WhatsApp message which was circulated in a reporters’ group.

While the local police tried to hush up the matter, this reporter and his colleagues used other contacts in the Police Department to get all the information needed for the case.

When the concerned inspector was asked to confirm details of the case available with this scribe, he vehemently denied any such incident. Faced with such blatant denial, this reporter and his colleagues shared all information regarding the case, provided by the source, with the inspector through WhatsApp.

Obviously irked by this, the inspector immediately traced the source using the format in which the information was provided and complained to him that this reporter was demanding a bribe from him to not publish the news. He also blamed his colleague for putting him in such a situation.  

Minutes later, this reporter got a call from the police source who was angry for demanding bribe - as if reporters could extract bribe from a policeman.