Don't visit us now : Henjang chief advises local scribes
Army slighted for bringing local media
Source: The Sangai Express
Kangpokpi, June 28 2023:
Clarifying over the alleged manhandling of journalists at Henjang village, the village chief clarified that none of the journalists were harmed or ill-treated, rather they were released safe and sound.
Clarifying, Henjang village chief, Kammang Lhouvum said that on June 26 evening, a few army officials visited him and informed that some National media including GTV and the Hindustan Times reporters were coming to the Leimakhong area for a spot inspection of the area and defense preparedness of the Kuki villages.
"The army officials informed me that the journalists were coming from Guwahati only, then we had a gentleman's agreement," he said.
However, the next day, when the journalists arrived, most of them were found to be from the local media and those from the National media were also local correspondents or reporters, he added.
"I do not know why the army officials betrayed us and broke our gentleman agreement by changing the media persons from GTV and Hindustan Times to The Frontier Manipur, TOM TV, and others.
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"We are not against the local journalists but the situation is not congenial for the two communities to visit each other," the village chief said.
He said that when the villagers came to know that the journalists were local, there was a little bit of scuffle but no untoward incident, no manhandling, and no harm was done to them.
"I was also persuading the villagers to control themselves as the journalists have a certain level of ethics to function.
We respect journalists.
We are not against them, but we are only requesting them not to visit at this juncture," he added.
He also recalled many unfortunate incidents that had unfolded between the two communities and added that some unwanted things could have happened to the journalists, but due to the patience and goodwill gesture of the leaders, our journalists were sent back safe and sound without any harm.
The village chief then requested the valley-based journalist fraternity to "consider twice" before coming to Kuki areas.
He also appealed to the journalist fraternity to uphold the truth.
A day will come again to have a cordial press meeting with lots of love and warmth, the chief said.