The Kerala reporter questioned the BJP candidate, Sobha Surendran, over the alleged cash-for-votes controversy
NEW DELHI — A Kerala woman journalist has said she was targeted with online abuse after questioning Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Sobha Surendran over the alleged cash-for-votes controversy during the assembly elections earlier this month.
Shamna K, a journalist with Malayalam news channel Big TV, faced a torrent of misogynistic slurs and threats online after she cornered the BJP candidate at a press conference in Kerala’s Palakkad district — and the abuse started almost instantly.
The flashpoint: Shamna pressed Surendran on widely circulated footage from Palakkad’s Kannadi area that allegedly showed a woman handing cash to voters on the eve of polling. Was the woman linked to the BJP candidate’s campaign? Surendran denied it, calling the allegations politically motivated.
What happened next was swift and vicious. Within hours, Shamna’s social media feeds were flooded with gendered insults, communal barbs, and threats designed to shut her down. “The messages went after my identity as a woman and as a Muslim,” media reports quoted her as saying on Tuesday.
She has since filed a police complaint with screenshots of the abuse.
Fellow journalists aren’t calling it random trolling. They say the pile-on looked coordinated — a textbook case of digital intimidation aimed at reporters who ask uncomfortable questions during elections. Some pointed to earlier local reports alleging voter inducement linked to Surendran’s camp, and to visual material that, they argue, raises unresolved questions about who the woman in the footage was and whom she was working for.
Surendran has rejected all claims of a cash-for-votes operation. But the backlash against Shamna has reignited alarms over press freedom and the price women reporters pay for challenging powerful figures. Opposition Congress leaders demanded swift police action, warning that hounding journalists corrodes democracy itself.
Media watchdogs have long flagged this playbook: ask a tough question, get swarmed online. For women on the beat, the attacks turn personal fast — gender, religion, family — with the clear intent to intimidate and silence.
The case is now with Palakkad police. Shamna, meanwhile, is back at work. “This is about whether reporters can do their jobs without being targeted,” a colleague said.
