ITANAGAR, July 16 � Following Sunday evening�s gun attack on a lady journalist by an unidentified assailants that left the State�s Press fraternity shocked and baffled, the Arunachal Press Club and Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists today vehemently condemned the firing incident, demanding the government to arrest the culprit(s) within a week.
In their harshest ever resolution, the press fraternity, backed by management/ owners, decided to go for one-day shutdown of all media houses on July 17 and to boycott all news and advertisements of the State Government for a period of 15 days as a mark of protest.
The members of both organisations in a two-hour-long meeting held in the Press Club premises here today vociferously objected to unabated attacks on media houses and mediapersons with no any action whatsoever by the law enforcing agencies and the court against the perpetrators of such incidents, and the attack on �The Arunachal Times� Associate Editor Tongam Rina is nothing but a daredevil act taking advantage of the lawlessness even in the State capital.
Condemning the attack on the scribe, who is contributing her might like other journalists, in no uncertain terms, the meeting construed it as �an attack on the entire press fraternity�.
Besides deciding to boycott State government news and advertisements for 15 days, the members demanded the attacker(s) of Tongam Rina should be booked under non-bailable section within 7 days and the case be fast-tracked through a special court to award exemplary punishment or else the case should be handed over to CBI forthwith.
Moreover, all the pending cases relating to attacks on media and mediapersons should be re-opened and handed over to an IPS officer to charge-sheet all the cases on a time-bound manner and forwarded to 1st class magistrate, as announced by the government on April 15, to specifically try such cases within three months.
It requires a mention here that unidentified miscreants had vandalized the office and several sets of computers of Arunachal Times on April 15 last but the perpetrators of the crime were yet to be arrested.
Today�s meeting also decided that a delegation will be sent to New Delhi or Guwahati to stage a protest in order to highlight the repeated atrocities being meted out to the press fraternity while the government remains a silent spectator giving only lip service.
It was also resolved that the management of all media houses should provide security within three days in their establishments for the security of the working staff and hi-definition CCTV cameras should be installed forthwith for security reason.
