Imphal, January 20 2010: Tehelka's Soma Choudury, appeared before the One-man Commission of Enquiry headed by Justice (retired) PG Agarwal looking into the fact and circumstance into the July 23, 2009 shooting incident involving state police commandoes, refused to name the journalists who took the photographs appeared in the August issue of the magazine.

The other journalist, Teressa Rehman, who was also summoned with Soma Choudury failed to appear in the hearing conducted but received an application giving reasons behind her inability to appear before the commission.

The One-Man Commission of Inquiry summoned four persons to appear before the commission today and give their statements.

Among those summoned were the two scribes of Tehelka who exposed the killing of former militant Ch Sanjit by the police commandos in the incident as "fake" and two doctors of RIMS, both of whom failed to appear before the Commission.

Teresa Rehman, citing threats from various circles through SMS to her mobile phone and non receipt of the warrant of arrest issued by the commission, furnished a fax message requesting the commission to take her statement in Guwahati if possible.

The two doctors of RIMS, Imphal, on the other hand, approached the commission to fix another date for their appearance as they are currently appearing in examination conducted by the RIMS authority.

Teresa reportedly stated in her submission that she did not receive any warrant of arrest provided to them by the authority and that she came to know of the matter from a report published in Assam Tribune in its January 5 issue.

Soma Choudury, Executive Editor of the Tehelka Weekly journal deposed that her story which appeared in the magazine dated August 15, 2009 was based on the statements of some witnesses and on the basis of someone who had spoken to her and who did not want to disclose his identity.

"I cannot take the names of the witnesses from whom I received the information/story.

In the issue of 8/8/2009 of the magazine, there were as many as 12 number of photographs," she deposed.

She visited Imphal and during her stay in Imphal, she met with the injured persons of the incident of July 23 and protestors in the hospital, some of the witnesses, she interviewed certain people in the government department, police department and others as mentioned in her article.

Soma said her story was based mostly on the photographs published in earlier issue of the magazine.

"I have no personal knowledge about the incident of July 23 and I have stated that my article is based mainly on the photographs published, my reading of the photographs, the interviews conducted by me and information gathered by me as a journalist," she put down before the commission.

She also refused to identify the person from whom Tehelka received the 12 photographs depicting a sequence of Sanjit being escorted by police commando personnel before he was allegedly shot dead in a "fake encounter".

After hearing her statement, the commission announced postponement of its hearing till January 27 next.

No specific orders to summon those witnesses who were absent today was issued.

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