Justice Markandey Katju condemns attack on media persons in Hisar, seeks probe

NEW DELHI: Press Council of India (PCI) chairperson Justice Markandey Katju today condemned the alleged police action against mediapersons in Hisar and sought a thorough probe into the matter so that those responsible for the "outrage" are punished.

"Media freedom is a guaranteed fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Therefore the attack by the police on mediapersons in Hissar today is totally unacceptable in a democracy," Katju said in a statement here.

He called for the a thorough probe into the matter immediately and demanded that those police personnel found responsible for this "outrage" should be punished.

He also said that compensation should be given for the loss or breakage of items like cameras, etc of the media persons.

Several persons, including security and media personnel, were injured as clashes erupted at the ashram of controversial 'godman' Rampal in Barwala in Hisar district today with police lobbing teargas shells and using batons to disperse his supporters who allegedly fired back.

Media crews faced the brunt of the violence that left some of them injured while cameras of many private electronic news channels were broken.

Meanwhile, reacting to another incident, the Press Council chief said that his attention had been drawn to an attack on November 12 on the premises of 'Dainik Bhaskar' in Nagpur by some miscreants.

Calling the incident very serious and condemnable, Katju issued a notice to Commissioner of Police, Nagpur seeking a report on the action taken by police in the matter and also the preventive action proposed to ensure non-recurrence of such incidents.