Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) president K Vikram Rao has urged Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal to ensure women journalists’ modesty.
The IFWJ president made the appeal to the Assam CM while expressing serious concern over the incident of manhandling of a woman reporter during a formal press conference in Guwahati Press Club recently.
Rao urged the Assam CM, who is also in charge of the state’s home department, to nab the culprits for lawful punishments.
The woman reporter, who represents a popular Assamese daily newspaper, was assigned for a media conference at the press club on January 16, 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.
The reporter has already lodged an FIR with the Panbazar all women police station in the city and subsequently the investigating officers have collected the necessary CCTV footage from the press club authority.
Various media organizations have raised voices against the unprecedented incident and demanded exemplary punishments to the abusers.
However, the accused individuals have obtained bail even though the investigation process is yet to be completed.
A number of Guwahati-based journalists demonstrated their angers against the culprits and demanded justice to the victim reporter.
The protest demonstration organized on January 19 drew the attention and supports from hundreds of media personnel.
They asked the press club authority to fully cooperate with the investigating police personnel.
“I would like to appeal to 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.
Rao also said for any reason it is not acceptable to abuse a reporter while facing uncomfortable questions by the press conveners.
“Staying mute to such an incident, where shockingly the victim is a woman, would be very untoward to the government,” he concluded.