Attack On Journos Overshadows Article 21 & 19, Editor’s Guild Demand Stern Action
New Delhi, Apr 8: Press freedom in India has been under attack as eight people, including a journalist, were stripped and assaulted inside a police station for staging a protest against the arrest of a theatre artist. And pictures linked to the incident in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh were widely circulated on social media on Thursday.
Few days after this incident a shocking incident came to fore in Odisha where a journalist identified as Loknatha Dalei for a renowned odia Daily from Odisha’s Balasore district, was chained to his hospital bed while undergoing treatment for allegedly thrashing a cop along with registration of an alleged false case by Nilagiri Police. And today the Nilagiri police station IIC Draupadi Das was transferred in connection with this case along with the suspension of a havildaar.
Stating that it is “deeply concerned by such attacks on 4th pillar of democracy, the Editors Guild of India condemned such acts. It is is shocked by the manner in which police arrested, stripped, and humiliated a local journalist in Sidhi, MP, as well as chained another journalist in Balasore, Odisha. Urges Home ministry to act immediately and take strict actions.
Editors Guild of India is shocked by the manner in which police arrested, stripped, and humiliated a local journalist in Sidhi, MP, as well as chained another journalist in Balasore, Odisha. Urges Home ministry to act immediately and take strict actions. pic.twitter.com/wSMjCesLR6
— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) April 8, 2022
The list doesn’t end here. During Odisha panchayat Polls, three journalists identified as Debashis Sahoo, Gulshan Ali Nawaz, and Bijay Sahoo were thrashed outside a booth in Jajpur while covering alleged booth capturing. Meanwhile, four journalists who were on duty at a booth in Badal panchayat in Kanas block of Puri were also attacked by miscreants. At the same time, even in few outskirts of capital city BBSR, tv journos didn’t feel safe as they were allegedly assaulted by political party supporters.
Prior to that, a journalist identified as Dattatreya Nayak, a correspondent of an Odia daily, was also beaten up by the police while he was taking pictures of a scuffle which broke out between the fruit vendors and the police while cops claimed that the vendors were flouting Covid-19 guidelines.
The OHRC has taken suo motu cognizance, yet there’s still a long way to give justice to the genuine scribes who put forth people’s plight against wrongdoings and injustice.
