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Assam scribes demand special protection law for journos

By AT News |

The city based scribes on 16 May assembled in a protest demonstration at the front of Guwahati Press Club to condemn the brutal killing of two scribes in Bihar and Jharkhand last week. Covering their mouths with black clothes, the demonstrators representing various journalist organizations also demanded stringent actions against the culprits.

It may be mentioned that the murders of Akhilesh Pratap Singh (also known as Indradev Yadav),35, who worked for a Jharkhand television news channel and Rajdeo Rajan, 45, who was reporting for Hindustan from Siwan locality of Bihar by miscreants have generated massive protests all over the country. Simultaneously, the demand for the special protection law for the media persons on duty is also been mounting.

Lately the Press Council of India chairman justice (retired) Chandramouli Kumar Prasad came forward to strongly condemn the killing of scribes and urged the Centre to enact a special law for protection of journalists and speedy trial of cases of attacks & assaults on the media persons.

“Nearly 96 per cent of the cases of killing of journalists have not been taken to logical conclusion and are either languishing in the courts or in some cases, investigation reached dead-end in the last two decades, as reported by a Committee of the PCI,” said the PCI chairman.

India as a whole lost three scribes to assailants till date this year as the first incident reported from Uttar Pradesh. Tarun Mishra, 32, who used to work for a Hindi daily (Jan Sandesh Times), was shot dead on 13 February at Gosaiganj locality in Sultanpur district.

The robust media fraternity of the populous country lost five journalists namely Jagendra Singh (UP), Sandeep Kothari (Madhya Pradesh), Raghavendra Dube (Maharashtra), Hemant Yadav (UP) and Mithilesh Pandey (Bihar) to attackers last year.

Meanwhile, various local, national and international media (rights) bodies including the members of prestigious press clubs based in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata etc demonstrated their angers against the vicious attacks on scribes and demanded distinctive punishment to each & every single perpetrator of the crimes.

The Guwahati demonstrators also supported the move for a special protection law for the working journalists across India and call upon the Union government in New Delhi to formulate a national action plan to safeguard the media persons, who pursue critical journalism.

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Assam Times Staff. editor@assamtimes.org
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