MUMBAI, India — The Charlie Hebdo slaughter in Paris has reverberated into the multireligious ethnic sprawl of Mumbai, where an Urdu newspaper has closed and its editor faces charges and death threats for having reprinted a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad from the satirical French weekly.
The prosecution of the editor, Shirin Dalvi, has focused attention on limits of freedom of the press in India, where news coverage often conflicts with the government’s efforts to protect religious groups from insult and disrespect.
All the employees of the daily newspaper, Avadhnama, were dismissed in the days after Jan. 17, when it published a 2006 cover from Charlie Hebdo showing Muhammad weeping. That image was part of the newspaper’s coverage of the aftermath of the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices on Jan. 7 by Islamist militants, who said they were avenging Muslims offended by the French newspaper’s cartoons.
Ms. Dalvi was arrested on Jan. 28. She has been out on bail, but is in hiding because of threats against her.
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Ms. Dalvi said that part of the harassment may be based on her success in the male-dominated field of Urdu-language journalism. She had been the only female editor of an Urdu daily.
Some other prominent journalists have come to her defense.
“Shireen Dalvi is that rare voice that liberal Muslims must ensure is not silenced,” wrote Vaishna Roy, a columnist for The Hindu, an English-language daily.
