Author: Express News
Service
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: August 17, 2000
West Bengal Governor
Viren J. Shah today expressed serious concern over the recent spurt
in attacks on mediapersons and told a five-member team of journalists to
take up the issue with the Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and his deputy, Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya.
Saying that these incidents
were ``serious'', Shah agreed with mediapersons that the assaults on the
media must be stopped immediately.
Earlier, journalists
in Calcutta took out a march to protest against the assaults and demanded
the immediate arrest of the culprits, alleged to be state government employees
attached to the Coordination Committee, a CPI(M)-affiliated employees'
body in the Writers' Buildings.
Hundreds of journalists
from both the print and electronic media from across the state joined the
meeting in front of the Calcutta Press Club and unanimously condemned the
attacks. They also passed a resolution urging the state government
to initiate action against the culprits. Prominent figuresincluding
Magsaysay Award winner Gour Kishore Ghosh and Barun Sengupta, the editor
of Bartaman, were present at the meeting.
The march, which began
from the Press Club of Calcutta, ended at the Rani Rashmoni Road near Esplanade.
A team of five members later submitted a memorandum to the state Governor.
Interestingly, while
the journalists staged protests and the Governor expressed concern over
the attacks, the Coordination Committee held a meeting at the Writers Buildings
and accused journalists of ``assaulting state government workers at the
Writers Buildings on 10th (of this month)''. In a resolution adopted
at the meeting, it was stated that journalists had procured false certificates
of assaults from the doctor at Writers Buildings to lodge an FIR with the
police. It was the journalists who hit government employees and the
government ought to punish the guilty, they demanded, further claiming
that the media has launched a disinformation campaign against the Left
to hoodwink the people. The Coordination Committee leaders also labelled
mediapersons ``plotters and conspirators'' out to destabilise the administration
and destroy the peace.
Later in the evening,
Deputy Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said at a press conference
that the state administration and police have been given strict directions
to ``protect mediapersons and to act on their complaints''.
When the Coordination
Committee's fresh charges against the media were brought to his notice,
he told reporters: ``You will work as freely as you used to. I don't
see this snowballing into a major hurdle.''
Bhattacharya said that
three persons have been arrested in connection with the incident of assault
on journalist in Uttarpara recently.
