mumbai in a huge relief to a news channel reporter rahul kulkarni a magistrate in bandra on thursday granted him bail in first information reports firs registered against him and others after a huge crowd of migrant workers s gathered outside the bandra railway station based on rumours that longdistance trains would be startinga magistrate in bandra court pragati yerlekar granted bail to kulkarni for a personal bond of rs 15000 and directed that once lockdown is over he should furnish surety of rs 20000police took suo motu note and had registered a first offence against 800 to 1000 unknown accused migrant workers for unlawful assembly and riotingthe second offence was registered by the police against abp majhas rahul kulkarni who heads the western maharashtra zone he was accused of allegedly airing news on april 14 that railways was thinking of running jansadharan specialsthe news was aired based on valid letter of april 13 which no one is denying argued his lawyer subodh desai and the news item has no connection for correlation to the gathering of the migrant workers he also argued that the news was prior to the address given by the prime minister narendra modi on april 14 about the extension of the lockdown till may 3 he also argued that once cancellation of trains were announced by the railway ministry the channel aired that news repeatedly from 1230 pm till 130 pm the gathering had begun at least two hours later he submitted citing news reportspolice officer from bandra police station padmakar devere sought kulkarnis police custody to investigate the connection and the motive behind the news report that had led to the gathering of the migrant workersthe police mentioned in the remand application that he aired the news at around 1115pm after the pms announcement the cops mentioned that though the pm announced the extension of lockdown from april 14 to may 3 the maharashtra state cm uddhav thackeray already announced the lockdown extension two days before hence kulkarnis acts amounted to a violation for which he was booked said the police adding that the railway letter which kulkarni got and based on which he aired the news was an an internal letter which was not a release or announcement to start any train but was to be discussed by the railway authorities to collect data of stranded migrant workersdesai also argued that even otherwise the news report never mentioned any particulars of any train or departure time or station arguing that hence it cannot be linked to the assembly of migrants he also pointed out that there were similar large assemblies of workers at other locations like mumbra in thane district hyderabad etc and hence cannot relate the channels news report to all the other gatheringsthere is freedom of speech and press or electronic media cannot be gagged in this manner argued desai he cited a recent supreme court order which had declined to gag the media during lockdown in a matterdesai also argued