Journalist Gerald held for interviewing YouTuber Savukku Shankar

Chennai: Senior journalist and YouTuber Felix Gerald was on Friday night arrested by the CyberCrime Wing of Tiruchchirappalli Police from New Delhi for interviewing and airing an interview with whistleblower ‘Savukku’ Shankar in which he made defamatory remarks against women police personnel. 

Gerald, who had worked in Tamil news television channels in the past and currently runs a YouTube channel called Red Pix, was camping in the national capital to meet office-bearers of the Press Council of India (PCI) regarding cases pending against him. 

A special police team from Tiruchchirapalli arrested Gerald in New Delhi on Friday night, a day after the Madras High Court rejected an anticipatory bail petition filed by him. The Tiruchchirappalli police had booked a case against Shankar and Gerald based on a complaint filed by M A Yasmin, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Musiri), for making defamatory and derogatory comments against women police personnel and police officers. 

Shankar was arrested by the Coimbatore Police on May 4 from a hotel room in Theni for making derogatory comments in an interview with Gerald on Red Pix. After Shankar’s arrest, the police had asked Gerald to appear before it in connection with the case on May 10.  

Gerald was booked under 294(b) (obscene acts and songs), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), of IPC, Section 4 of Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Woman Act and Section 67 of Information Technology Act, 2000. 

In the interview done by Gerald, Shankar made defamatory comments against women police personnel alleging that they make compromises with senior officials to get postings in the department. At one point in the interview, Shankar also calls a police officer a “scoundrel.”

While the arrest of Shankar and Gerald have led to a debate on social media, almost all political parties in Tamil Nadu have refrained from condemning their arrest, though they had come out in support of the YouTuber when cases were filed against his colleagues from Savukku Media. 

Shankar and Gerald are vociferous in their criticism against the DMK government led by Chief Minister M K Stalin. The duo had come under criticism in the past for going “overboard” in their criticism of the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues by dragging their personal lives.

Shankar, a former employee of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), is a regular on Tamil YouTube channels and is a known critic of the DMK government. 

He spent over two months in jail in 2022 after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court sentenced him to six months in jail in a suo motu contempt proceedings against him for his statement that “the entire higher judiciary is riddled with corruption.”