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Orissa police takes leaf out of
Punjab cops' book
But unlike
Punjab, Orissa media world is much alive to the police's concocted
stories
WSN Network
Bhubaneswar: Just
like the Punjab Police had illegally picked up and detained
journalist and doctoral studies student Sewak Singh in
Patiala, arrest of a young journalist in Orissa has triggered many
agitations.But there is a crucial difference. While CM of Punjab and
the Akali Dal leadership has kept mum over raids on the offices of a
magazine and arrest of a journalist, in Orissa, CM Naveen Patnaik
has called Laxman Choudhury’s arrest for having “links with Maoists”
ludicrous.
Laxman Choudhury is
a stringer with Sambad, the largest-selling Oriya daily, and the
police has slapped several charges against him, including of “waging
war against the state”. His offence: a packet containing eight
Maoist leaflets addressed to him was recovered from a bus conductor.
The conductor,
Pradip Patra, too, has been arrested.
Even the Punjabi
media in the Punjab which is forever crying hoarse about the freedom
of press has kept mum on the issue but the Orissa brethern of Laxman
Choudhury have taken up the cause. However, with his bail hearing
deferred on Thursday, Choudhury will stay in jail till at least
October 5.
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The real
reason for the arrest may have been the series of articles
written by the Sambad stringer on illegal activities by police
personnel. Clearly, the police don’t want any voice of dissent
and anyone who believes otherwise is tagged a Maoist or Maoist
sympathiser. |
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Activists in the
state say that the problem lies in the Orissa Police muzzling voices
of dissent, and doesn’t begin or end with Choudhury’s arrest from
Mohana block of Maoist-infested Gajapati district. Choudhury isn’t
even the first journalist to be arrested on allegations of links
with Maoists in the state.
While journalist
Kirti Sahoo was arrested in 2004 on similar charges, editor of
Nishan magazine Lenin Kumar was jailed for several days last year by
Bhubaneswar police for writing about Kandhamal riots. In September
2008, a correspondent of Amari Katha newspaper, Debendra Das, was
arrested on charges of sedition, and is still behind bars.
Others too have
drawn similar action in the state. Orissa High Court lawyer Pratima
Das, arrested for alleged links with Maoists and charged with
sedition around the same time as Debendra Das, too continues to be
behind bars. A few weeks ago, 30 tribal labourers were arrested in
Sundargarh district on charges of harbouring Maoists, which had also
triggered an uproar.
Clearly, the police
don’t want any voice of dissent and anyone who believes otherwise is
tagged a Maoist or Maoist sympathiser.
The Real Reasons
Choudhury’s fellow
journalists in Mohana say the real reason for the arrest may have
been the series of articles written by the Sambad stringer on
illegal activities by police personnel. “He wrote recently how cops
in Mohana had turned a blind eye to smuggling of ganja in lieu of
money from traders,” says Debashis Padhy, his colleague in Sambad.
“He also wrote against police inaction in women trafficking cases.”
Choudhury owns a
bookstall right opposite the Mohana police station and, according to
Padhy, this helped him acquire information against the police.
“He was quite
popular in the area and always made it a point to write against
corrupt cops,” says Rupesh Sahu, who works for another Oriya daily,
Dharitri.
With the police
unable to produce anything substantial against Choudhury, apart from
the Maoist leaflets, journalists, lawyers and activists are also
questioning the use of Section 121 of the IPC against him.
The punishment for
war against the state is capital punishment.
30
September 2009
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