The ‘Tripura Assembly of Journalists’, Agartala Press Club and journalists’ Unions had condemned the attacks on two media persons by the miscreants on Friday and Saturday nights at Hrishyamukh in South and Ambassa in Dhalai districts. Several veteran and senior journalists alleged the attacks were fallout of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s controversial statement at Sabroom recently on media.
Condemning the attack Tripura Assembly of Journalists – a newly floated forum to deal with issues related to protection of working journalists – held a press conference and urged the Chief Minister to take back his comments within three days.
The newly floated forum also anticipated that the comments of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb against a certain section of the media acted as an encouragement for miscreants.
Sources said, a local TV journalist of Hrishyamukh was attacked by some miscreants believed to be local level BJP leaders. The miscreants tried to snatch his camera and hurled abusive languages while he went to cover an event at Chailthkhala area of South Tripura district. In the second case, Parashar alias Pinku Biswas of Amabassa associated with a local TV and a vernacular daily was attacked by some miscreants at the intervening nights of Saturday and Sunday.
Biswas had made an aggressive Facebook video against Chief Minister’s comments on media. Police believed that this video acted as immediate trigger to the attack as it evoked serious repercussion as Pinku was heard using ‘objectionable words’ in his video message. Biswas was attacked on late Saturday night. He had been hospitalized for treatment. In both the cases, none could be arrested so far, police sources confirmed.
However, the newly formed media forum—Tripura Assembly of Journalists’ had said that it would not tolerate any ill-treatment being meted out to the journalists of the state.
According to the press statement, Governor of Tripura, Prime Minister of India, Home Minister of India, Press Council of Media, International Federation of Journalists, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives and Editors’ Guild would be made aware of the contents of Chief Minister’s speech that the forum felt “intolerant” and sought to threaten the Press.
Meanwhile, Agartala Press Club and other journalists organizations including TWJU, Union of Tripura journalists also condemned the incident.
‘Syandan Patrika Editor Subal Kumar Dey was nominated as the chairman of the forum where veteran journalists Sekhar Datta held the post of convenor. Senior journalists Paramita Livingstone, Jayanta Bhattacharjee, Shanit Deb Roy, Dr Biswendu Bhattacharjee, Debasish Majumder and Ramakanta Dey were the members.
