Scribes seek safety mechanism
Source: The Sangai Express / IANS
New Delhi, September 23 2017:
Gathered here to condemn the death of one of their fraternity members, journalists on Friday resolved to fight for a better protection mechanism for those who cover news from conflict-hit locations .
A news reporter for a local channel, Shantanu Bhowmick, was abducted and hacked to death on Wednesday while covering the clashes that broke out between the CPI-M`s tribal wing Tripura Rajya Upajati Ganamukti Parishad workers and the cadres of the Indigenous People`s Front of Tripura, a tribal-based Opposition party, in Tripura .
The journalists descended on the Press Club of India and demanded action from both the State and Central Governments into the life lost in the line of duty .
To make their protest more symbolical, the fraternity decided to carry out a silent march on October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, to the Home Ministry and present a memorandum of their demands .
“Whatever he was or he was not, Bhowmick was certainly a journalist… We must take out this march and make our voices heard,” Rajdeep Sardesai, a consulting editor at the India Today group, said .
He also cautioned against those journalists who downplay such protests sitting on the sidelines, saying the scribblers` community did not care about the small town journalists, causing a rift in the fraternity .
“A pernicious and dangerous campaign is being run to divide journalists.
There are no left wing and right wing journalists, it`s only those who practise their craft in line of its ethics and those who don`t,” he added .
Some of those present pointed out the apathy of those media employers who do not even bother to give insurance cover to their employees .
General secretary of the Indian Women Press Corps Aditi Tandon said the journalists should form a committee to record such killings and present a report to the Government to press them to make the required laws.