At a meeting held in Patna on Sunday the journalists regretted that though more than 48 hours have passed yet the attackers are roaming about freely. They squarely blamed the Town DSP, Ramakant, and the Kadam Kuan SHO, Jyoti Prakash, for openly siding with the BJP leaders and forcing upon Tiwari not to press for action.

In a signed memorandum to the chief minister Nitish Kumar they sought immediate action against the two police officials, arrest of the accused and an impartial inquiry into the incident.

Journalists were appalled by the manner in which the deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, has been siding with the accused, Madhu Verma, who is also a Professor in Arvind Mahila College. Her son Rituraj, is a Customer Relation Assistant in Indus Bank.

Those who took part in the meeting are President of Bihar Working Journalists’ Association, Arun Kumar (The Times of India),Nalin Verma (The Telegraph), Santosh Singh (Indian Express), Faizan Ahmad (The Times of India), Manoj Chaurasia (The Statesman), S T Anand Das (Asian Age), Arun Kumar (Hindustan Times), Shatrughan (Lokmat), Priya Ranjan Bharati (Rajasthan Patrika), Ajay Kumar (BiharTimes), Soroor Ahmed, (Free Lancer) Ganga Prasad (Jansatta), Manish Kumar (NDTV) Srinand Jha (Hindustan Times, Delhi), Ashok Mishra (Economic Times), Manoj K Pathak (IANS) and several others.

Narrating the incident Amarnath Tiwari said what is really shocking is the manner in which the top BJP leaders of the state are jumping in support of the accused. “The deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi refused to accept that Rituraj could go violent because he earns a salary of Rs one lakh a month in the bank. What a strange statement it is. Can a person who gets a salary of Rs one lakh not commit any crime?” he asked.

Arun Kumar of the Times of India, who is also a member of the Press Council of India, strongly criticized the BJP Mahila Morcha’s threat that it would sit on dharna to support Madhu Verma. “What is this. Is Mahila Morcha a holy cow? If they can sit on dharna, why can’t we?” he questioned.

He said it may be that the dispute among the flat-owners of the Charminar Apartments sparked off the row. But does this give one licence to make a murderous assault on anyone.

The journalists were unanimous in criticizing the overall atmosphere of fear and terror in the state. They said that they are working under repeated threat and pressure from powers that be yet nothing is being done to protect them. “Yes, such threat is a part of professional hazards. But the situation is much more serious than that in Bihar. Here the media is under pressure not to publish even the news of assault on one the senior members of the fraternity,” one of them said.

A delegation of journalists made repeated attempts to get appointment from the chief minister Nitish Kumar but till late on Sunday night they could not get time.

Comment

comments...

NDA government led by the chief minister Nitish Kumar has now started "stage two operations to silence the press." In the first phase Nitish government has declared "undeclared censorship". During these period of his over six years rule in Bihar, Nitish and his NDA ministers, JD(U) and BJP leaders and workers as well as legislators had initiated drive to silence the press and made attack on the freedom of the press by browbeating and humiliating the owners of media houses both print and electronics, mainly by the Chief minister Nitish Kumar. In the processs, Nitish Kumar started showing contempt towards media persons, not toeing his line besides distributing advertisements in unequal proportions in massive way following giving pep talks to the owners and humiliated them. Even after all these high-handedness, some media houses and mediaperosons continue to take neutral line and deeds and misdeeds of the Nitish govt continued to surface! For this many media persons are being threatened that if they continue to write adversely against Nitish government

Thereafter both the ruling and BJP and JD(U) leaders , workers, legislators, ministers, chief minister started browbeating journalists. Again a process started to attack on journalists and different parts of the state, many journalists were assaulted in the last six years besides attacking media houses and threatening to journalists. Many houses, plots and property of common masses were grabbed by the JD and BJP leaders, which naturally brought the attention of the media! On the instigation of the Nitish government, Magnificent media houses and Star News were locked by the Biscomaun management-later the lock was lifted on the directive of the court!

The assault on Pionerr journalist Amarnath Tiwari by the BJP leader Madhu Verma, his son Rituraj and other BJP workers had made murderous attack on Tiwari when he was watering the garden of the Apartments in Rajendra Nagar colony. Sadly when the FIR was filed against Madhu  Verma, a teacher Arvind Mahila College and living in the same apartment, the Kadamkuan police dithered and even the police did not take trouble to investigate the case. Regrettably, the deputy chief minister Defended Ms Verma and reportedly directed the police to act slow. Entire BJP and ruling alliance BJP and JD (U) alliance partners have started putting pressure on police to ignore such serious case. Such situation in Bihar has aggravated the ground realities. Claim of good governance turned into misgovernment and bad governance of the Nitish government.

Journalists, at a meeting, had rightly condemned the murderous attack and the journalists must meet the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in delegation to apprise him the prevailing situation in the state. If he  Nitish Kumar fails to initiate action, journalists should be prepared for direct action at least with the help of left parties and naxal groups to protest atrocity of the Bihar government and also attack on freedom of press in Bihar. Concerted agitation must begin to restore freedom of the press for this we can take help of any organizations barring anti-national forces.

K K Singh, Journalist.

my blog  www.kksingh1.blogspot.com