Media fraternity demands punishment for accused in attempt to murder journalist in Arunachal

Itanagar, 13 Sept [cnn-ibn]: The media fraternity in Arunachal Pradesh, on Friday, demanded stringent punishment to the accused who tried to kill a lady journalist here on July 15 last year.
The media fraternity under the aegis of Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) and Arunachal Press Club (APC) has expressed satisfaction over the surrender of the mastermind Yumlam Achung on Thursday. Both the organizations lauded the capital police for building constant pressure over the accused leading to his surrender.
Both the organisations in a statement said that the case should be tried in a fast track court on a priority basis. While appealing the government not to grant bail to all the accused it said, punishment to this particular case should be such that it should set an example for all those who think they can bog down the freedom of press.
Achung, the mastermind behind the attempt to kill Journalist Tongam Rina, surrendered before magistrate yesterday and was remanded to seven days judicial custody. Rina, the Associated Editor of 'The Arunachal Times', the first English newspaper of the state, was critically injured on July 15 last year when assailants shot at her while she was entering her office in the evening.
While Achung was evading arrest since then, police on July 10 last charge sheeted three other accused - Ajit Pegu, Raju Gurung and Gamke Veo who were also involved in the incident.

Area MLA accepts moral responsibility for NOW! attack, apologises to media

GANGTOK, 09 Nov: Kabi-Lungchok MLA, PHE Minister Thinlay Tshering Bhutia, met with media-persons here at the NOW! office today and owned up moral responsibility for the attack on the NOW! office by party members from his constituency and apologized to media-persons at large for what he insists was an aberration which he himself condemned in the strongest words. The attack on the NOW! office involved the SDF candidate for the Tingmoo-Ghaikhana ward panchayat.
Meeting with the NOW! staff and representatives from Press Club of Sikkim at the NOW! office here this morning, Mr. Bhutia accepted that being the area MLA of the place from where the perpetrators hailed, he took moral responsibility for the incident and regretted that a candidate he had cleared as a panchayat ward candidate of the party indulged in something which went against the ideology and principles of the party.
“If they were not satisfied with any news-report, they should have discussed the matter with the editor and sorted it out, but they chose the wrong way. Vandalizing the NOW! office was wrong,” said Mr Bhutia.
The Minister further informed that not only he, but other senior office bearers of the party were also disturbed by the incident and that the party’s disciplinary committee headed by former Minister KN Rai, the accused in connection with the attack and belonging to the SDF party have been expelled. An official confirmation in this regard has however not come from the SDF party yet.
Reiterating that those involved in the attack should be strictly dealt with by the law, he also assured, as demanded by the journalists, that neither he nor any of his associates in the party will interfere in the due process of law or try to compromise the investigation or prosecution.
As for reports that his PA [reported in some papers as CA] had tried to seek bail for the accused, Mr. Bhutia clarified that the name mentioned in media-reports as his PA/ CA was not officially attached with him in any capacity and was acting in his private capacity and not representing him or the party in the present context.
An attack on the fourth estate is most unfortunate, the Minister reiterated in conclusion and assured that such an act will not repeat in the future.

Sore losers launch vicious attack on NOW!

5, INCLUDING RULING PARTY’S DEFEATED PANCHAYAT ASPIRANT FROM TINGMOO-GHAIKHANA, PLACED UNDER 5-DAY POLICE REMAND

GANGTOK, 08 Nov: A group led by the defeated panchayat aspirant of the ruling party from Tingmoo-Ghaikhana ward under Kabi-Tingda constituency of North Sikkim vandalised the NOW! office here at Gairi Gaon late on Wednesday night. The group had arrived from Kabi armed with an arsenal of stones and hurled them viciously through the windows and caused extensive damage to one floor of the office. They raised slogans against the paper and courted arrest when police personnel from the Tadong police out-post arrived at the spot. This was around 11:15 pm, shortly after the paper has been sent to print and the staff had departed for the day. Had anyone been present in the office at the time, they would have been grievously injured.

Following the incident, an FIR was lodged at Sadar Thana last night and five persons, including the defeated ward panchayat aspirant, 25-year-old Bibi Doma Tamang, were taken into custody by the police. The others arrested in connection with the attack are - 20-year-old Pem Chuki Tamang, 26-year-old Tashi Bhutia, 30-year-old Gyatso Bhutia and 22-year-old Pahalman Tamang, all reportedly from Tingmoo-Ghaikhana.
The Sadar Thana has registered the case under sections 452 [House-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint], 511 [Punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment], 147 [Rioting], 149 [Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object] and 427 [Mischief causing damage] of the Indian Penal Code. The accused have been sent to five days police remand.
The cause of their ire is baffling to say the least. It transpires that they believe that NOW! inflated the margin by which Bibi Doma Tamang lost the ward election. Incidentally, some other sections had highlighted this to the NOW! office a earlier in the day and a corrigendum projecting the figures claimed by them included in Thursday’s edition. It now transpires that what this ill-informed group believed to be an “inflated” margin is in fact the vote-share for the ward officially released by Returning Officer for North Sikkim.
Be that as it may, the group held dearly to their grouse and targeted the NOW! office with vandalism after festering over it throughout the day. The incident has been condemned by political parties and media groups across the board, and seeing the attack on the NOW! office as an assault on all media and joined hands under the banner of the Press Club of Sikkim to not only condemn the incident in their papers, but also on the streets. They marched down from the PCS office on DPH road to the NOW! office in a protest rally as a show of solidarity and to send out a clear message that attacks on the media will attract forceful and unanimous condemnation.
Before that, the journalists called on the DGP Jasbirbir Singh at his office regarding the incident and presented a written representation signed by all journalists present. During the half-hour meeting, the DGP assured that the police would take the most stringent action and increase the police strength at Tadong Out-Post due to the presence of many media houses in the area.

Brazenness of attackers sends out worrying signs

GANGTOK, 08 Nov: That the perpetrators of the attack on the NOW! office are still under police remand is partly due to the joint effort of the entire press fraternity of Sikkim and more so the commitment of the police not to allow any compromises in the case.
The attack on the office of the newspaper late on the night of 07 November by the losing SDF candidate of Tingmoo Ghaikhana ward under Kabi Tingda constituency, Bibi Doma Tamang, in which the office furniture and other items were damaged is being unanimously condemned as a dangerous trend suggestive of political parties, especially the ruling front, which are growing intolerant, even of the truth.
Bibi Doma Tamang and her supporters swooped down on the Sikkim NOW! office last evening and threw rocks and stones, threatening the office staff and challenging them. It had only been a few minutes since the last of the staff had left and the office closed down. They then courted arrest by Tadong police out-post personnel, convinced at the time that the party bosses above them will get them out on bail early enough the next morning.
This was exposed when the PA of the area MLA [Kabi Tingda], Minister TT Bhutia, Tankyo Bhutia, appeared at the Sadar Thana in the morning to make bail for the five accused. That however did not come through, but the attempt attracted attention because it bore out the brazenness with which the attack was planned, with the accused reportedly announcing their plans in advance and calling on their seniors to get them out of the lock up after they had carried out the attack.
As soon as the incident was over, the perpetrators surrendered to the police smiling and still taunting the press in the knowledge that they would be out the next morning without much fuss. It is this attitude and support that is disturbing to the peace-loving people of the state.
Apart from condemnations, it is expected of the area MLA in question to at least own up moral responsibility for the incident and apologise to the media in Sikkim for the attack by party workers from his constituency.
As explained elsewhere in this paper, the attackers launched such a vicious attack on the basis of a perceived slight. Their grouse was that the newspaper had wrongly mentioned the number of votes by which the SDF candidate had lost in the ward panchayat election. As it turns out, this was not an incident of wrong reporting, but the statement of votes as handed out by the DC North on 05 November. The winning Independent candidate, the accused contend, had secured 137 votes but the official figures record 257 votes [as reported in the paper] whereas the vote share of the losing SDF candidate was given as 120 when it should have been 121.
Such a thin veil of tolerance, especially on the part of the ruling front, is unsafe, dangerous and a threat to the efforts being put in by all sections of society to put Sikkim into the mainstream, and also, as people are wont to say, a setback to tourism.

Media fraternity condemns attack on NOW!

GANGTOK, 08 Nov: The media fraternity of the state and those from the neighbouring hills have strongly condemned the attack on NOW! office last night.
The Press Club of Sikkim, while urging the State government to ensure the safety of journalists and newspaper houses, has underlined that “attacking a newspaper office cannot be the way of expressing one’s electoral frustration”.
The Press Club has further urged the Sikkim Democratic Front leaders to take action against its members involved in the attack.
These demands have been supported by Indian Journalists’ Union, Journalist Club of Siliguri and Press Club of Kalimpong.
Meanwhile, the Sikkim Federation of Working Journalists (SFWJ) condemning the attack has stated that the failure of the administration to bring to book those elements responsible for attack on media houses in Sikkim in the past has emboldened such elements to continue violently venting their displeasure with media houses and journalists.
SFWJ has further appealed to all state governments in the Northeast, including Sikkim, to provide CCTV cameras to all media houses so that journalists and media houses in the region work in a safe and secure environments. SFWJ has also urged all journalists in the region to stay united and to speak up unitedly and effectively.
Sikkim Mahila Partrakar Sangh [SMPS] has also condemned the attack as an attempt to suppress the freedom of the press and demanded that the ruling party take strict action against its youth and Cheli Morcha members involved in this attack. Pointing out that the culprits have accepted their crime, SMPS has also demanded that the administration take strict action against them.
Journalists from West and South Sikkim have also demanded that those involved in the incident be expelled from the SDF party along with strict action be taken against the culprits as per the law. They have also demanded that the state administration ensure security for the press fraternity in the state.
Condemning last night’s incident as a “barbaric attack”, the Darjeeling Press Guild has stated that it is not just an attack on a particular publication but on the entire press fraternity.
Kalimpong Press Club [KPC] has stated that the attack on the press when the Chairman of the Press Council of India and journalists from across the country were in the state is a totally condemnable act. KPC has demanded that the administration take a more serious note of the safety of journalists in the state.
Similarly, Sikkim Press Association [SPA] also condemned the incident stating the act was cowardly and urged the administration to act strictly so that such incidents did not repeat in the future. The association welcomed the SDF party’s assurance to take strict action against those involved in the incident.

ASESEUA and Sikkim RTI Forum denounce attack

GANGTOK, 08 Nov: All Sikkim Educated Self Employed & Unemployed Association [ASESE&UA] has termed last night’s attack on the NOW! office as yet another attack on democracy by the Sikkim Democratic Front. The Association has stated that this is not the first time that the state has witnessed such an incident and alleged that every time the state administration and police have acted in a dissatisfactory manner.
Following the ruling party’s victory in the recent elections, there has been a total break down of law and order in the state, the release alleges. ASESEUA has further demanded that the Governor and the Union Government to immediately dissolve the state government and invoke Governor's rule “for proper functioning of the state at this present juncture”.
Also condemning the attack, Sikkim RTI Forum has stated in a press release that, “On 06th November the Governor of Sikkim said ‘Media is the light of Democracy’ and on 07 November, Sikkim NOW's office was attacked. We speak of democracy and we attack the wheel on which the very democracy moves”.
The Forum has stated that the attack on NOW office is not an attack on the "Press" but an attack on democracy itself. It has further stated that in order to create a healthy and informed society, a strong media is a necessity and under no circumstances will an attack on media be tolerated.

Opposition condemns attack on media

GANGTOK, 08 Nov: Condemning the attack on the NOW! office, the Sikkim Himali Rajya Parishad Party [SHRPP] has demanded that Pawan Chamling step down as the Chief Minister for what the party sees as his failure to maintain peace or uphold democracy in the state.
An SHRPP press release mentions that after the attack on Hamro Prajashakti and Himalayan Mirror five years ago, the repetition of such an act is most unfortunate. The party has alleged that as supporters of the ruling party have been arrested, SDF is to be held fully responsible for the incident and has demanded that those arrested not be released and strong action be taken against them.
With the attack on independent candidate, Geeta Sharma on 06 November and now this attack on a newspaper house, the SDF has no right to remain in power, the release expresses and demands that the Chief Minister step down on moral grounds.
Meanwhile, dissident SDF MLA, PS Tamang has also condemned the incident and alleged that the state government has always failed to initiate appropriate action on such attacks on the media in the state. Demanding stringent action against the culprits, Mr Tamang has further alleged that the series of attacks on the state’s media has exposed the ruling government and party’s inefficiency.
Also condemning the attack, Sikkim Pradesh Congress Committee [SPCC] president, NB Bhandari has stated that the attitude and behavior of the members of the SDF party reflects what the party stands for. That appropriate legal action would be initiated against the culprits who belong to the ruling party is highly unlikely, Mr Bhandari has further commented.