By IANS,
Mumbai: Maharashtra’s journalistic community is set to stage a protest at Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s customary legislature session-eve tea party in Nagpur Sunday to demand stricter law to protect mediamen, a reporters’ group said.
The move would be to protest the state government’s failure to enact a strict law to make attacks on journalists a non-bailable offence, and would be supported by 16 main media organisations across the state, said S.M. Deshmukh, convenor of Patrakar Halla Virodhi Kruti Samiti.
“Media persons will attend Prithviraj Chavan’s press conference wearing black badges and would not ask any questions. We will intensify our agitation from Jan 6, celebrated as Patrakar Din, if the government fails to act in this matter,” Deshmukh told mediapersons.
Journalists will also take out a protest march from the Nagpur Patrakar Bhavan to the state legislature building Dec 15 to draw attention to the growing vulnerability of media persons to attacks.
The winter session of the legislature is usually held in Nagpur, the state’s second capital.
Since the past couple of years, state journalists have been demanding enactment of a law to make attacks against the Fourth Estate a cognizable, non-bailable offence.
Deshmukh also cited the case of senior Mumbai journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, who was killed in broad daylight June 11 this year.