IJU expresses concern over intimidation of Guwahati scribes

March 6: Indian Journalists’ Union (IJU) has taken strong objection to the intimidation of two Guwahati based journalists by armed militants belonging to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent).

In a statement issued on Saturday IJU President and Secretary General K. Sreenivas Reddy and Balwinder Singh Jammu have expressed serious concern over the fate of two engineers kidnapped by the banned outfit on December 21.

The leaders urged the Assam police to probe the matter sincerely and also asked the media fraternity in Assam to stand by journalist PK Gogoi and Dikshit Sarma, associated with popular digital news outlet Time8. Despite repeated apologies from the two journalists the separatists are acting funny.

The separatist Ulfa (Independent), which has been waging a war for an independent Assam has abducted two engineers Pranab Kumar Gogoi and Ram Kumar working for Haryana based Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Limited. The militants took umbrage to some comments made by the journalists during a discussion on the kidnap for ransom and demanded an apology.

Fearing for the safety of the kidnapped engineers the two journalists immediately tendered an apology but the separatist outfit issued three statements within 20 hours, the last two of which targeting Dikshit. First, they took objection to the body language of Dikshit and next the language of him.

The IJU leaders expressed serious concern over the development. Recalling the past instances where the Ulfa leaders played this kind of tricks when they had already killed abducted individuals but continued negotiations with the victim families, they requested the Ulfa (I) leaders to clarify the whereabouts of Gogoi and Kumar who are expected to be released on 4 March. Lately the outfit was also trying to blame the scribes for the fate of abducted employees.
Northeast India based Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) had recently urged the State police to unearth, if any, conspiracies against the media fraternity. The IJU also echoed similar views asserting that if anyone was pushing false information to armed rebels with an aim to settle private scores that must be considered a serious crime.