Attack on scribe

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, May 23: Albert Camus rightly says 'a free press can of course be good or bad, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad'.  Is the press in Assam as a free one?

What happened to a city jourlist on duty on May 22 is a real shocker. Jourlist Mukut Roy, who went to cover the incident of the City Police and Gorchuk police conducting a raid in a godown located in the Gorchuk area, was physically assaulted by the owner of the building where the godown is sheltered and his wife in front of Gorchuk SI Maijuddin Ahmed and other Food Safety officials yesterday.

The raid against the godown was following a tip-off that a massive racket was supplying expired consumer products after repackaging them to retailers across the State, mostly in rural areas. And the repackging was being done in the particular godown. What is shocking is that the couple – Indra Mohan Kalita, the project director of Karbi Anglong DRDA, and his wife – assaulted the jourlist in front of the police official who was standing there like a mute spectator.

The jourlist later filed a case (229/15) at Gorchuk police station against the couple.

Meanwhile, the jourlists of Guwahati today condemned the incident and staged dhar at Dispur Last Gate. Demanding arrest and punishment to the culprits, they sent a memorandum to the Chief Minister. The agitated jourlists told the Chief Minister that if the culprits were not arrested by tomorrow, they would cover the programme on the completion of the fourth year of his government by wearing black badges.