MUMBAI: A court sent the lead anchor of India’s fiercely nationalist Republic television network to jail for 14 days for allegedly abetting a suicide.

Police picked up Arnab Goswami, an aggressive journalist known for championing right-wing causes in his prime time debates, from his Mumbai home early on Wednesday.

Top leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sprang to Goswami’s defence and said it was no way to treat the press, blaming opposition politicians who run the government in western Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located.

But the BJP has faced criticism that it has sought to intimidate journalists and activists in states that it governs. Critics said its defence of free speech was selective and that Goswami was a conservative ally of the ruling party
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No party in India can claim to speak for true freedom of expression and speech,” Kuber said.

Police said the case against Goswami related to the 2018 suicide of an interior decorator who allegedly left a note saying Republic TV had not paid him for design work on its television studio.