Shillong: Patricia Mukhim, the Editor of Meghalaya's esteemed daily, The Shillong Times, has quit the Editors Guild of India. The editor resigned expressing her disappointment on the organisation's 'partisan' way of working. Mukhim has also resigned for the organisation not responding to a plea proposed by her.
Her resignation letter is addressed to the President of the Editors' Guild of India, Seema Mustafa. In her resignation letter, Mukhim wrote about how the Guild has ignored Mukhim's appeal to respond to a particular order of the High Court of Meghalaya.
On July 4, in a Facebook post, the editor of The Shillong Times, called upon Conrad Sangma, the Chief Minister of Meghalaya, R Chandranathan, the DGP of the state and Dorbar Shnong, the traditional institute to take action against the culprits behind the brutal assault by the people on non-tribal boys who played basketball in a tribal majority area.
To her surprise, the Dorbar Shnong of that area filed an FIR against her. The lawyer of Mukhim tried to cancel the FIR and approached the Meghalaya High Court.
Mukhim mentioned on her resignation that on November 10, the High Court ruled out that Mukhim is guilty of creating communal disharmony, which is a crime under the Section 153 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The court refused to cancel the FIR filed by the Dorbar Shnong.
Hoping for a statement from the Guild, criticising the order of HC, Mukhim shared it with the Guild. To her utter disappointment, the Guild stayed silent on the issue. However, the Guild responded to the arrest of Arnab Goswami and condemned the act of arresting him. Arnab, who is a not a member of the Guild got support on abetment of suicide case, but Mukhim, a member of the guild did not get any support or response from the guild.
Mukhim submitted her resignation on November 16 and mentioned that she feels "completely out of place" in the Guild.