Protest against the killing of an editor of Assam continues, as the journalists declared and implemented a series of protest and demonstrations. A protest meet at the cremation ground appealed all the media persons of the State to participate in the program demanding to nab the culprits and compensation to the family of the editor.
Mentionable that Anil Majumder, an editor of an Assamese daily Aji was shot dead on March 24 night in front his residence in Rajgarh locality of Guwahati. The killers were waiting for the young editor to come back from the office and soon after the assassination at around 10 pm, they fled. Hailed from Nalbari district, Majumder, 39, left behind his wife and two daughters.
The police are yet to break any significant clues, though the department issued the sketch of the killer, prepared with the information fed by the driver of the editor.
Mentionable that Assam has lost over 20 editor-journalists in the last two decades and surprisingly enough not a single perpetrator of these heinous crimes had been booked under the law. The victims include Kamala Saikia, Deepak Swargiary, Kundarmal Agarwala, Manik Deuri, Prarag Kumar Das, Ratneswar Sarma Shastri, Nurul Haque, Jogesh Uzir, Dineswar Brahma, Girija Das, Monikan Das, Ranbir Roy, Prahlad Gowala, Maslimuddin, Bodosa Narzary, Jagajit Saikia etc.
The killing of Anil Majumder has brought many issues to public forum. He was a brave journalist but allegedly often ended up in biased reporting. He was prolific, but most of the time, he might got used by somebody. From a local media correspondent in Nalbari, Majumder owned a daily newspaper in Guwahati, which shows his extra-ordinary zeal and hard labour for achieving success. But on the way, he grew enemies from different sections in the society including the media fraternity.
The Journalists' Action Committee, an umbrella organization of media bodies of the State had issued an ultimatum to the government to nab the killer within a week. The committee had recently submitted a memorandum to the State chief minister Tarun Gogoi urging him to initiate to arrest of the killer and the perpetuators.
Earlier most of the Assamese dailies were published with blank editorials on March 26 as a mark of protest against the gruesome assassination. It was decided during the protest meet at the cremation ground on March 25 where hundreds editor-journalists attended the meeting and expressed anguish at the failure of the authority to ensure protection to the media persons in the State.
The committee earlier submitted a memorandum to the Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil demanding punishment to the culprits and urging to ensure the security to the media persons in the conflict ridden region.
“The militants display a common tendency to defy the democratic values of the country. But the media fraternity, working in the region, does their best to pursue all the values that India stands for. And hence it remains the duty of the government to ensure the safety of these sentinels of the society. Otherwise, it argued, our claim as the largest democracy in the globe will be in stake,” pointed out in the memorandum.
Meanwhile, the Editor’s Guild of India with the Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists and International Federation of Journalists have condemned the killing of the editor. The voice of protest has been raised a number of media bodies and also socio-political organizations in Assam.
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