Author: Our Staff Correspondent
Publication: The Hindu
Date: August 6, 2002
The entire press corps here was
up in arms against the Chhattisgarh Government over the arrest of a senior
journalist, Rajnarain Mishra, for writing a "blasphemous'' article in a
weekly newspaper that "hurt the sentiments of the minority community''.
Mr. Mishra, editor of the weekly
in which the opinion piece appeared, was the first recipient of the Statesman
Award for Rural Reporting.
Mr. Mishra, in his seventies, was
taken to hospital after his arrest for heart ailment and then to the police
station. He was produced before a magistrate in the morning who granted
him bail. Over 1,000 journalists, trade unionists and activists of the
non-government organisations had on Sunday marched to the Raj Bhavan protesting
the arrest and handed over a memorandum to the Governor condemning the
police action and demanding the immediate removal of Iqbal Ahmed Rizvi,
chairman of the State Minorities Commission and Aijaz Debar, State unit
president of the National Students Union whom they alleged were behind
the mob action.
