CHANDIGARH: Employees of All India Radio Chandigarh demanded the resignations of the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ajit Panja and the Director General of All India Radio S.P.Bhatilker stating that the two should own responsibility for the killing of M.L.Manchanda station engineer at Patiala.
“They should resign on moral grounds otherwise the employees associations will be compelled to take serious action” the employees declared in a press statement read out at their day-long dharna. No recording was done at the local station and the suspension of work is likely to continue.
The employees demanded that the government reconsider its media policy on language and meet the legitimate demands of the people of the area so that innocent media people were not made the target. “Regional news in Hind: should only be broadcast from AIR Rohtak and not from Chandigarh and Jalandhar” they asserted.”
They appealed to the militant organizations saying “We have no say in policy formations so we should not be made targets” The employees while expressing deep shock at the killing and heart left sympathies for the bereaved family severely condemned the attitude of All India Radio and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The utter negligence and callousness on the part of the authorities was evident from the fact that after the killing of the Station Director R.K. Talib a handicapped person in Chandigarh in December 1990 and until the kidnapping of Manchandaon May 18 no senior officer of AIR or the I & B Ministry visited the affected stations to discuss issues and problems faced by the employees they said
The Joint Secretary of the I & B Ministry had assured employees of an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh following the death of Talib but nothing had been done since then.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 12, 1992
