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HomeIndiaTripura cops, govt lacked ‘integrity’ in handling communal incidents, media: Editors Guild...

Tripura cops, govt lacked ‘integrity’ in handling communal incidents, media: Editors Guild report

3-member team visited Tripura to probe alleged attacks on media in particular. Since September, state has seen spate of alleged attacks on political & media offices and mosques.

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Guwahati: The Editors Guild of India (EGI) Wednesday released a report of its fact-finding mission on “attacks on media freedom in Tripura”, in which it said the state police and the Biplab Deb-led BJP dispensation were complicit in the “growth of muscular majoritarianism that subverts democratic institutions”.

The report, in its conclusion said, “the Tripura Police and the administration have displayed lack of professionalism and integrity in dealing with the communal conflict and with those reporting on the issue”.

Since September this year, Tripura has seen a spate of incidents including attacks on party offices of the opposition CPI(M), media offices and mosques

The three-member fact-finding team, which included independent journalist Bharat Bhushan, EGI general secretary Sanjay Kapoor and Pradip Phanjoubam, editor of the Imphal Review of Arts and Politics, visited the state from 28 November to 1 December to investigate the alleged attacks on the media in particular. 

During this time, the team met journalists, representatives of the state government including the chief minister and the director general of police (DGP), and civil society activists.


Also read: Police scrutiny, poor roads & mud-caked sandals — A reporter’s diary from Tripura & Manipur


‘Wedge between local and outside journalists’

The fact-finding committee said “a wedge” was sought to be driven between local and outside journalists on how these communal incidents were being reported, and tension was stoked. 

“The picture that the state government officials painted was of an ‘outsider’ media given to outrage and a local state-based media that was sober and moderate on the matters of communalism,” it said, adding that “it seemed that the media from outside Tripura was in a better position to report independently and in an unbiased manner than its local counterpart”.

According to the Editors Guild of India team, another way the BJP-led government had tried to make sure the media toed its line was by “denying or tightening the tap on government advertisements to a media platform”, which is crucial for the survival of media houses. 

ThePrint had, in September, reported that the government would often curb advertisements.

The team’s report also quoted a senior functionary of the Tripura Human Rights Organisation, who said that denial of advertisements and government pressure had led to the collapse of media organisations including Mrinalini ENN, Din-Raat, Akash Tripura and Hallabol

“All government advertisements have been stopped in four Tripura-based newspapers and 24 newspapers that are published from outside the state,” the report stated. 

About communal violence

While the fact-finding team didn’t visit the sites where the incidents of communal violence had taken place, it spoke to journalists, government representatives and police officers on the issue.

According to the journalists’ account, following the incidents of communal violence in Bangladesh, “rumours began circulating from unestablished sources that Hindu temples and images of Hindu Gods were being desecrated at various places in Tripura”. 

Then on 26 October, Hindutva outfits held rallies to protest against the incidents in Bangladesh. Chief Minister Deb told the team, “After communal riots in Bangladesh, 1.30 lakh people in Tripura came out in the streets. There were 250 (public) protests because people here have family and relations across the border.” 

It was during these rallies that the alleged attacks took place. 

The report, however, said according to the police narrative “no used mosques were attacked and that only abandoned ones had some damage done to them”.

“The DGP spent a considerable amount of time telling our team that reporters must learn the difference between a prayer hall and a mosque,” the report said. 

(Edited by Rohan Manoj)


Also read: Old pix of burning cars, movie screengrab — ‘fake’ Tripura violence posts being probed by police


 

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