Students At Utkal University Protest Police Excess On OTV Journalist

Bhubaneswar: Student groups at Utkal University here on Friday condemned the forcible pick up of OTV’s Senior Journalist Ramesh Rath by police and staged a protest over the incident in front of the university gate.

Agitating students displayed placards and raised slogans in support of OTV and condemned the government for their intentional assault against the fourth pillar of democracy.

“Odisha Government is intentionally putting an assault against OTV and people of the state are aware of it. We strongly protest against this act of the government and urge it to refrain from this kind of act. The journalists should be given protection. Otherwise, all students will hit the streets across the state,” said student leader Manas Kumar Sahu.

It is worth mentioning that Ramesh Rath, a senior journalist with the Odisha Television Ltd (OTV) was allegedly picked by police from near his residence in Bhubaneswar on Thursday.

Four to five persons, who identified themselves as police, forcibly picked up Rath and took him to an undisclosed location. Rath’s phone was immediately confiscated and he was not allowed to make a call to his family too.

The development came a day after OTV telecast an expose on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s claims of an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas of the State based on RTI revelations.

(Edited by Suryakant Jena)

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