Tiff between media, lawyers intensifies in Kerala

The tiff between the media and lawyers in Kerala took a turn for the worse in the state capital on Thursday when lawyers threw stones at journalists in front of the district court.

The incident took place at a time when representatives of the media and the lawyers met at Kochi along with Advocate General C.P. Sudhakara Prasad to amicably settle the issue that first came to the fore there on Tuesday .

It began after media reports that a government pleader had misbehaved with a woman. The lawyers claimed that the pleader was falsely implicated and police and media are hand in glove in the conspiracy.

The tussle between the journalists and the lawyers turned violent on Tuesday.

There was tension between the two groups on Wednesday as well, which led to the intervention of Prasad and the meeting on Thursday decided to initiate a judicial probe into the incident.

After the Kochi meeting, angry lawyers assembled inside the district court premises in the state capital and closed the main gate of the court and threw stones at journalists assembled outside.

While two journalists were injured, a few vehicles of the TV channels were also damaged in the stone pelting.

The immediate provocation for Thursday's incidents here was that the media room in the court premises had posters 'no entry for fourth gender'.

The TV journalists had come with police to shoot this.

When the media left the premises, they were stoned by the lawyers.

For almost two hours, the situation was tense and finally after the intervention of the political leadership and police, normalcy was restored.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said these two professional groups should work in tandem and all the issues should be resolved at the earliest.

"The government at no cost will entertain violence and if it happens it will be dealt with strongly," said Vijayan.

Kerala Congress president V.M. Sudheeran said a probe should be ordered on the attack on the media.

--IANS

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