Media bodies have expressed concern over the arrest of a digital media journalist, Dilawar Hussain Mozumder, by the Assam police in the early hours of of March 26.
The Editors Guild of India (EGI) said, “The detention of a journalist while on duty is deeply disturbing. While the media is duty bound to report fairly and responsibly, it is equally the responsibility of the Assam government to ensure that journalists can carry out their work without intimidation or obstruction.”
“At a time when press freedom is perceived to be under siege across the country, this incident raises serious concerns about media suppression. The EGI calls on the Assam administration to urgently clarify the circumstances that led to his detention…,” it said, urging all governments and law enforcement agencies to uphold the constitutional values of press freedom and to refrain from using criminal laws to intimidate or harass journalists.
In a separate statement, Press Club of India (PCI) said the journalist – working as the chief reporter of The CrossCurrent – was detained at Guwahati’s Pan Bazar police station since March 25 afternoon without citing any reason.
He was “covering a protest held by a sister organisation of the regional party, Assam Jatiya Parishad, in front of the headquarters of the State government-run bank, Assam Co-Operative Apex Bank at Pan Bazar” when he was summoned. “The protest was held against alleged multi-score scam in the recruitment of the bank. While the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is the bank’s director, its chairman is Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Biswajit Phukan,” the Club said.
It said, “When the Bank’s managing director Dambaru Saikia arrived at the scene, Mozumder approached him for a news byte, and asked him if he could stop there to reply to his questions. Saikia could be heard on camera asking him to come to his office upstairs instead, which Mozumder did. However, on coming out of the bank, he received a call on his phone from the Pan Bazar police station, asking him to report. On arrival, he was detained.”
“In a Facebook post soon after reaching the police station, Mozumder had said that he was being detained for asking questions to the bank MD about the alleged scam,” the PCI said.
Stating that his lawyer was not allowed to enter the police station premises, it said, “Since Mozumder was on fast, his wife had reached the police station with Iftaar in the early evening which too was refused. Mozumder, a diabetic, was also not allowed medicines. Past 11 p.m., on the continued insistence of fellow journalists, his wife was allowed to meet him for some time.
Post midnight, an Assam police official told those waiting outside the police station that he had been arrested under the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (Prevention And Atrocities) Act for hurting the sentiments of a person from the Bodo community.”
Condemning the police action, the PCI urged the State government and Mr. Sarma to ensure that the State police respect the true spirit of the SC/ST Act, “While also taking into consideration that there must not be any false charges lodged against a reporter who belongs to a backward, minority community, and was covering a sensitive corruption-related protest as part of his routine job”.
