Did exposure of Rs 150-crore scam lead to protest against newspaper in Tripura?

AGARTALA: The Director General in-charge of Tripura Police, Rajiv Singh told that a complaint was registered at Radhakishorepor police station and an investigation is ongoing to identify those responsible. Pratibadi Kalam, a vernacular newspaper of Tripura lost some 6,000 copies, which gets despatched to three different districts in Tripura. The newspapers were snatched and destroyed (burnt and thrown away) from passenger buses at Udaipur in Gomati district on the morning of November 7.

Editor Anol Roy Choudhury suspects the assault was due to the coverage of an alleged Rs 15 crore agriculture scam the newspaper had published over the previous three days. "We published a series of reports in which State Agriculture Minister Pranajit Singha Roy's name came up among others," said the editor. Editor Choudhury has named 11 persons in his complaint allegedly led by a person identified as Raju Mazumdar who has been made responsible for "forcefully unloading" bundles of newspapers from a bus en route to Agartala-Sabroom.

Agartala Press Club's outgoing secretary Pranab Sarkar, outgoing president Subal Kumar Dey and others met DIG Soumitra Dhar at the State police headquarters requesting for strict actions regarding the issue. The assault was condemned by senior journalist Jayanta Debnath at the Assembly of Journalists, a forum for protection of media freedom has given 24 hours to the police to nab the culprits, failing which they said they would assemble for a sit-in demonstration around the police headquarters.

Veteran journalist Jayanta Bhattacharya believes it is an infringement on the rights of media and expresses his fear for media's future if a trend as such continues. (Agencies)

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