Chief minister Ashok Chavan and home minister RR Patil are contemplating to introduce an ordinance that will make the attacks on the media a non-bailable offence. Patil has said that previous cases related to attacks on the media will be dealt with at fast-track courts.
To condemn the attack on the Marathi news channel IBN-Lokmat on Friday, journalists and their associations staged a dharna at Hutatma Chowk on Saturday. Vijay Darda, head of the Lokmat Group of newspapers, and Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN, addressed the journalists who participated in the dharna. Home minister RR Patil met the protesting journalists and assured stern action against the culprits involved in the Friday attack.
When it was brought to Patil’s notice that no attacker had been punished in earlier attacks so far, he said that all pending cases will be heard in fast-track courts. When a delegation of journalists met chief minister Ashok Chavan at his residence on Saturday, he assured that along with attackers, conspirators would also be booked.
Meanwhile, 17 Shiv Sena members who were allegedly involved in the attack on the IBN-Lokmat office have been charged with attempt to murder and outraging the modesty of women. A Vikhroli metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday remanded them to police custody till Monday.
The accused have been slapped with non-bailable charges. The police had today sought the custody of the arrested accused in order to investigate under whose behest they were acting and who had instigated the attack. The police have named Sunil Raut, brother of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, as a wanted and prime accused in the case.
Suspected Shiv Sena activists vandalised the offices of the Marathi news channel in Mumbai and Pune on Saturday and assaulted staff members for carrying reports that allegedly showed Bal Thackeray in a bad light.
Meanwhile, blaming the channel for its condemnable language that consequently instigated the Sainiks to attack, Sena also has ‘advised’ other media houses to “know their place.” In the party mouthpiece, Saamna, the media has been blamed for acting like ‘contract killers’. “The media was expected to play a charitable role, but is instead acting under the influence of money. It wanted to decide the fate of candidates in the upcoming elections, in stead of leaving the decision to voters,” Saamna said.
Citing the statement of West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya, that people should decide who comes to power and the media should not snatch away this right from them, the editorial blamed the media for crossing limits. “In Maharashtra particularly, the media had surpassed Hitler’s Goebbels and tried to take everything in its own hand,” it stated.
