Srinagar
The Editors Guild of India while condemning former minister and BJP leader Lal Singh’s threat to Kashmir journalists, has demanded Governor NN Vohra to take necessary action in this regard.
“Such a warning not only betrays Singh’s deep disregard for the role of the Free Press in a democracy, it also amounts to encouraging physical attacks against journalists in the sensitive state and elsewhere in the country,” a spokesman of the EGI said in a statement while demanding that the Governor should take note of this incitement to violence against journalists and take necessary action against Singh.
“The Guild’s attention has also been drawn to the recent instances of how several television channels in Tamil Nadu have been arbitrarily taken off the air for periods ranging between a couple of hours and a few days,” said the statement.
Notably, Lal Singh, a BJP MLA, had warned Kashmiri journalists to draw a line between reporting facts or face the fate of ‘Rising Kashmir’s editor Shujaat Bukhari, who was shot dead by unknown gunmen.
“Kashmiri journalists have created an erroneous atmosphere and I would like to ask them to draw a line…You want to live like what happened to Basharat (Shujaat Bukhari)…Take care of yourselves and draw a line so that the brotherhood is not broken and it is maintained so that progress and development is ensured,” Singh told reporters in Jammu on Friday.
