National

Scribes condemn attack

By Special Correspondent

New Delhi APRIL 8. The police attack on journalists at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad drew strong condemnation from journalists, artists and writers in New Delhi. The attack on journalists, who were covering a peace meeting at the Sabarmati Ashram on Sunday, comes only days after a police assault on a woman reporter from The Asian Age newspaper and a photographer in Ahmedabad's Gomtipur area.

The Editors' Guild, whose fact-finding team has only recently returned from Gujarat, has demanded "strong action against those who trifle with the freedom of the press''. The Guild condemned the police assault on journalists, highlighting the fact that "senior police officers led the attack'' rather than protect journalists who were discharging their professional duties.

At a rally in New Delhi, organised by the Delhi Union of Journalists, demonstrators said that the police assault was an assault on the freedom of the press.

Addressing the rally, S.K. Pandey, president of the Delhi Union of Journalists, said that the journalists were attacked while trying to do their job.

Prabhat Dabral, president of the Press Club of India, said that the attacks on journalists was what one could expect from the Sangh Parivar, whose ideology precluded a respect for the institutions of democracy.

Sumit Chakravarty, editor of Main Stream, said the national media had played a positive role in reporting the continuing violence in Gujarat. He said that this was the reason that the Narendra Modi Government was targeting it.

Habib Tanvir, playwright and one of the many writers and artistes who participated in the protest rally, said that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar were intolerant of those who disagreed with them, and "those who prized our democracy should come together to defend the freedoms of speech and expression".

The DUJ general secretary, Javed Faridi, said today's protest was only the beginning of a campaign seeking "action against media-bashers and the perpetrators of the Gujarat carnage''. The DUJ, in a statement, also called on the PCI to "stop pontificating'' and instead investigate the "incidents of press bashing and attempts to intimidate and muzzle the media.''

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