In a letter to Interior Minister Lal Krishna Advani, Reporters Without
Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard recalled that he had already
written to him on 27 June to protest against a search of
Tehelka.com's offices. "The arrest of two of the site's journalists
in the past month constitutes a further stage in the harassment of
this independent press site. We ask you to have this intimidation
brought to an end and to drop the proceedings against these
journalists", the letter said.

As well as requesting Badal's release, the letter also recalled the case of
the Kashmir Times' bureau chief in New Delhi, Iftikhar Gilani, who
has been detained since 9 June for having allegedly violated the
country's Official Secrets Act.

Badal, held since 3 July, began his hunger strike on 5 August. In a letter
published on the site, he wrote that, "The only reason I am suffering in
this manner is because I am a journalist from Tehelka.com, which took
up the cudgels to expose the corruption in high places in the
governance of the day". He said he would continue his hunger strike
"no matter what" until a judicial decision was taken in his case.
"The jail authorities have already started to persuade me to drop my
idea. But you cannot keep a journalist quiet. Even in a jail."

Aged 29 and the father of a four-month-old baby, Badal is accused by
the Criminal Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of having hired poachers
to kill leopards belonging to a protected species in the Saharanpur
jungle in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh so that it could be
recorded on film. He has claimed his innocence from the outset.
Since his arrest, he has been subjected to various forms of
mistreatment. On the first day, he was allegedly obliged to undress
for a body search in front of a dozen prison guards and dozens of
inmates, most of them laughing as they watched. He is being held in a
prison wing intended to house 60 inmates which currently holds more
than 250 in health-threatening conditions.

Various factors suggest that the CBI was asked by the government to
make life difficult for Tehelka.com, which exposed a major corruption
scandal within the government in 2001. The other Tehelka.com
journalist to have been detained in the past month was Aniruddha
Bahal, who heads its investigative team. He was arrested on 7 August
as a result of a complaint filed by a CBI officer who accused him of
having "threatened" him. Bahal was released on bail the same day.