Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) president K Vikram Rao expressed serious concern over the incident of manhandling a lady reporter during a formal press meet in Gauhati Press Club recently and urged Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, also in charge of State home portfolio, to nab the culprits for lawful punishments.

Mentionable is that the lady scribe, who represents a popular Assamese daily newspaper, was assigned for a media conference at the press club on 16 January 2021, where she was verbally and physically abused by the conference convenors namely film producer Umashankar Jha and his associate Pranjal Gogoi. The victim claimed that she was misbehaved only for putting some tough questions to the organizers.

Meanwhile, she lodged an FIR at Panbazar all women police station in the city and subsequently, the investigating officers have collected the necessary CCTV visuals from the press club authority. Various media organizations raised voices against the unprecedented incident and demanded exemplary punishments to the abusers. However, the accused individuals have already obtained bail even though the investigation process is yet to be completed.

Lately, a number of Guwahati scribes demonstrated their anger against the culprits and demanded justice to the victim reporter. The protest demonstration on 19 January drew the attention and supports from hundreds of media personnel. They also asked the press club authority, which only released a statement cleverly avoiding the names of accused individuals (but identifying the victim lady), to fully cooperate with the investigating police personnel.

“I would like to appeal CM Sonowal ji to take personal interest over the matter as it would remain as a black spot over the present government, which has other ways implemented a number of media welfare schemes,” said Rao adding that for any reason it is not acceptable to abuse a reporter while facing uncomfortable questions by the press conveners. Stay mute to such an incident, where shockingly the victim is a woman, it would be very untoward to the government, he concluded.