CHANDIGARH: Chandigarh based journalists, covering Punjab, have passed a resolution criticizing the repeated attempts of the Punjab Government to muzzle the freedom of Press through “coercion and manipulation,” At meeting at the Chandigarh Press Club On Aug.20, the journalists also decided to convey their displeasure about the Government’s interference in their work to the Press Council of India.
The meeting was called to dis cuss the latest example of the State Government’s negative policy towards the Press, where by a local correspondent was reportedly threatened telephonically by Punjab Police Chief K.P.S.Gill if he did not withhold a news item about a press conference in which a woman had alleged that she had been raped by a police official and not Baldev Singh Bhatti, a BSP MLA as the police had stated earlier,
The resolution passed by the meeting said “this incidents only one of the numerous incidents during the last many months, wherein the Punjab Government, particularly the Punjab police, had sought to browbeat the Press.”
Gill’s threat to the journalist of a news agency followed after the Punjab Police was accused by 2 rape victim and her mother of committing the dastardly act and al the same me giving a clean chit to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 27, 1993
