By Nava Thakuria
For three days, the journalist fraternity of Assam demonstrated their angers against the police atrocities on various occasions. The media persons expressed apprehension that the police commissionerate, which was introduced in Guwahati city of northeast India since 1 January 2015, would increase the police access to different public space.
The renewed debate started on 31 January, when a lady television reporter and her camera person faced physical attacks from the police on duty at Latashil police station at the heart of the city. The young reporter, who works for the Guwahati based satellite news channel DY365, went to the police station, of course with due permission, to report about the pathetic condition of the quarter and barracks inside the Thana compound.
Everything was fine till the reporter found a clue that there was a quarter inside the PS campus, which was rented out to outsiders by a police officer. The reporter talked to a woman, who was staying inside the said quarter, though she claimed to be a close relative of a police sub-inspector. The concerned SI Shamsuddin Ahmed was recently transferred from Latashil PS, but he did not vacate the quarter.
As the lady scribe talked to the woman in the quarter, the police men on duty informed the officer-in-charge Chidananda Bora about the matter. Bora immediately asked the media persons to withdraw the
visual of the reporting, which the lady reporter refused. That ended in physical assaults by the police men on the camera person and even the lady reporter.
According to the FIR, the lady scribe lodged in Latashil PS, she was targeted by both OC Bora and SI Ahmed (who was present there) and even touched her private parts. The police men snatched the camera, where the footage relating to news story was recorded, and asked the media persons to delete the same. When they did not comply, the situation turned ugly.
Facing the unwanted situation, the lady reporter quickly called her olleagues, which was responded to by a group of reporters belonging to her news channel. More journalists from other media outlets in the city also joined them turning it into a demonstration inside the Thana compound. The main incident took place at noon and the protest demonstration continued till the night.
Next day, a group of journalists and civil society groups assembled in front of the Assam Secretariat, demanding punishment to the police personnel who assaulted the television journalists on duty. The police were quick to arrest and take away the first batch of agitators. But more protesters joined them and the whole day the drama continued.
Meanwhile, the Electronic Media Forum Assam (EMFA) and Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) strongly condemned the police atrocities on the lady scribe and also the arresting of agitating journalists from the front of State Secretariat on 2 February. Both the organisations urged the State chief minister, also in charge of home portfolio, Tarun Gogoi and Assam police director general Khagen Sarma to take appropriate actions against the guilty police officers immediately.
The government in Dispur verbally communicated the agitating journalists and informed that both the blamed police officers were closed to reserve (meaning removed from duty) and the chief minister ordered a high level probe into the matter. But initially there was no official statement regarding the government responce.
Guwahati police commissioner Jyotirmoy Chakrabarty also reiterated that the responsible police officers would be punished if proved guilty. He also informed that a case was registered in Latashil PS following the FIR of the lady reporter. However the police also received two more FIRs lodged in the same police station by SI Ahmed and the woman, who was interviewed by the lady scribe in the quarter on the fateful day.
All Assam Police Association, while trying to justify police actions against the lady scribe, argued that she ‘trespassed into the privacy of a woman’. In a statement, the police association claimed that the lady scribe took visual and put abrasive questions to the woman when she was breastfeeding her baby.
Ridiculing the allegations against the lady scribe and accompanying camera person, the EMFA organized a human-chain in front of Guwahati Press Club on 3 February. Journalists across Assam supported the move and demonstrated against the police atrocities on media persons with black-folding their mouths. The press fraternity of Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur also supported the agitating journalists of Assam.
Finally the State government, in an official communiqué, declared that the chief minister Gogoi had ordered a probe into the incident by additional State chief secretary Rajiv Bora and ordered him to submit the report within one month. Assam Human Rights Commission also registered a case and asked the authority to probe the matter of harassing media persons inside a police station.
The EMFA, which lodged a complaint with the National Commission for Women demanding justice to the victim journalists, also raised voices for a special protection law for journalists on duty. In a memorandum to Sadananda Gowda, the Union law & justice minister, the television journalists’ forum claimed that the situation is same across the country, and hence a special law for working journalists becomes the need of the hour.
“Need not to mention that the journalists, who remain visible in the society for their working space, often face vulnerability all along their working hours. The situation thus curtails the freedom of expression, the rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution to every citizen of the country,” said the memorandum adding that the present laws in practice in India treat a journalist on a dangerous assignment without any differentiation to a common man.
“This may discourage the journalists from taking hazardous engagements due to the fear of facing unwanted circumstances, which will ultimately affect the functioning of journalists and many of them may opt for soft stories resulting in the slow degradation of journalism in our country,” stated the EMFA memorandum.
(A senior journalist based in Guwahati, the writer is the general secretary of the Guwahati Press Club)
