Press Council chief warns of criminal action against police for attacking journalists

The Press Council of India's (PCI) activist chairman, former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju has called on both the central and state governments to ensure that journalists are not attacked by para-military forces and the police while carrying out their duties.

Katju's missives to the union cabinet, chief ministers and other top bureaucrats follows an attack on three photographers by CRPF personnel in Srinagar on 25 November while they were covering protests by a mob.

The PCI chairman immediately dashed off a note to Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir, urging him to instruct para-military forces and the police not to commit violence against the media. He warned that the PCI would initiate criminal proceedings against them.

''It is the duty of the Press Council to uphold the freedom of the press,'' said Katju. ''A journalist while covering an incident is only doing his job. He is like a lawyer who defends his client. Just as a lawyer cannot be equated with his client, so also a journalist cannot be equated with the crowd,'' the former judge said.

According to him, a lawyer may defend a murderer, but that does not make him a murderer. ''Similarly, a journalist is only doing his duty of conveying information to the public, and he enjoys the fundamental right of freedom of the media guaranteed by the constitution of India.''

The PCI chief also rejected the police version that journalists could not be differentiated from the rest of the mob of 300 to 400 youths who were hurling stones at the cops. ''I am informed that the journalists had video cameras and other equipment, which clearly distinguished them from the rest of the crowd,'' he told Abdullah. ''At any event, it is obvious that when a journalist is being attacked he is bound to tell the police that he is a journalist.''