Muzzling FoS: Protest Grows Against Police ‘Excess’ On Journalists In Malkangiri

From Malkangiri to Odisha's capital city of Bhubaneswar, journalists across the State took out rallies and staged dharna protesting police excess on the scribes, on Tuesday.

More than 300 journalists from neighbouring states of Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and undivided Koraput district took out a protest march and sat on dharna in front of the SP office in Malkangiri demanding unconditional release of the scribes arrested by the police on Friday night.

Similarly, scribes under the aegis of Koraput United Working Journalists Forum sat on dharna at the Buxipatra square in Koraput demanding to free the arrested journalists. The district Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, apart from several tribal leaders of the district, lent support to the protest.

The Capital city Bhubaneswar also saw a similar protest when journalists from several media houses joined hands and protested at the Jayadev Bhawan before submitting a memorandum to the Odisha DGP.

Speaking to the reporters, Senior journalist Aksahy Sahu said, “We have three demands; immediate unconditional release of the arrested scribes, scrapping of cases against them and action against the police personnel who arrested them over personal grudge.”

The Police had conducted a raid on Friday night and arrest five scribes for allegedly scuffling with doctors who were on duty at the Korukonda Community Health Centre (CHC).

As per reports, the journalist had gone to the CHC to cover an incident of alleged medical negligence and mismanagement. However, some doctors stopped them from asking questions to the patients about the hospital management and treatment, leading to a scuffle between them.