Press Council of India seeks special law for scribes

Strongly condemning the killing of two journalists in Bihar and Jharkhand, the Press Council of India (PCI) on Saturday demanded enactment of a special law to ensure safety of scribes even as it set up two fact-finding committees to probe the incidents.

Officials sources said that PCI chairperson C.K. Prasad has constituted a panel comprising its members Kosuri Amarnath, Prakash Dubey and Prajnananda Chaudhuri to look into the murder of a senior journalist and Siwan bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan Rajdeo Ranjan, 42.

For the other incident in which a Hindi TV journalist Akhilesh Pratap Singh, 35, was shot dead in Chatra, Jharkhand, the PCI has constituted a fact-finding committee consisting of its members Prabhat Kumar Dash, Sondeep Shankar and Rajeev Ranjan Nag.

The PCI chairperson has directed that these reports be called from concerned SPs, DGPs and chief secretaries of the two states.

Earlier, the PCI chief in a statement strongly condemned the killing of the two journalists and demanded that a special law be enacted to ensure safety of scribes and cases of attacks on them be tried by fast-track courts.

In a statement here, Mr Prasad also rued that in 96 per cent of such cases, the matter is not taken to logical conclusion. “It is a matter of grave concern that three journalists were killed in the country in the last four months and another died in a tragic accident while on the line of duty,” he said.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley strongly condemned the murder. “I strongly condemn murder of journalists Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan and Akhilesh Pratap Singh in Chatra district,” tweeted Mr Jaitley, who is also the minister for information and broadcasting. “Independent investigation may be instituted,” he said.

In Bihar, the murder was condemned by NDA leaders who termed the situation in Bihar as “maha jungle raj” instead of “jungle raj”. Mounting an attack on chief minister Nitish Kumar over the deteriorating law and order in the state, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said, “Even journalists are now not safe in Bihar. His stories may have angered criminals with top political connections.”

While referring to a meeting held inside Siwan jail by RJD minister Abdul Gafoor with Mohammed Shahabuddin, Mr Modi said, “Nitish Kumar talks of good governance in Bihar but he has no control on his own ministers who visit Siwan jail only to meet the jail convict.”