COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Press Council orders security for Dara Singh interviewer

The Press Council of India has directed the Orissa government to provide security to freelance journalist Binaya Bhusan Pattnaik and his family who had recently interviewed Dara Singh, prime accused in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two sons.

The PCI's direction yesterday came in the wake of a petition submitted before it by Bhubaneswar journalists alleging that Pattnaik was mentally tortured mentally by the Keonjha police who arrested him on April 5 and later released him on a personal bond. They described the police action as an attack on the freedom of press.

The PCI also asked the government to depute senior official to ascertain whether the journalist was mentally tortured by the police and submit a report to the council as soon as possible.

The journalists, who pleaded the case before the council, stated that Pattnaik apprehended danger both from the police and Dara Singh.

The council rejected the contention of the state government that Pattnaik had ceased to be a journalist and that he had no locus standi to approach the Press Council.

After hearing both the journalists and the state government represented by state home secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy, the PCI chairman Justice P B Sawant ruled that every citizen has to cooperate with the law enforcing agency as nobody was above law.

The state home secretary dubbed the allegation of the journalist as "vague" and said interrogation inside the police station could not be treated as mental torture.

Tripathy agreed to provide security to the journalist but wanted the journalist to specify from whom he apprehended threat.

The Press Council however, declined to go into the merits of the case.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report