Moradabad District Magistrate Rakesh Kumar Singh on Monday issued a clarification after reports alleged that he had locked up a dozen media personnel in the emergency ward of the district hospital during Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath’s visit on Sunday, PTI reported. Kumar said that some people had been stopped from entering the ward, but were not held captive by the authorities.

Singh said there was no rule to stop the media from covering any programme but that they were bound to follow the rules. He further said over 35 people were detained in the hospital due to safety measures and security concerns while a few of the journalists were allowed to go inside the ward.

The district magistrate also asked the concerned information officer to make an “accurate list” of government-accredited journalists in order to prevent problems of coverage during visits from authorities in the future.

On Sunday, reports alleged that he had locked up a dozen media personnel in the emergency ward of the district hospital during Adityanath’s visit. Some reports claimed that the step was taken to prevent the journalists from asking the chief minister any questions about the quality of services at the hospital. But the reasons were not clear.

Reports also said that police personnel were stationed outside the locked room. The media personnel were let out after Adityanath left the building. After videos of the incident went viral on Twitter, Kumar claimed that there were “so many media persons” inside the ward during the inspection, so he had asked them to not enter the ward with Adityanath as “it was not good for patients health”.