JFA welcomes PCI initiative on safety of journalists

Journalists' Forum Assam today welcomed the initiative of the Press Council of India to send a sub-committee to Guwahati for an interaction on the issue of safety of working journalists in Assam.
The PCI team is scheduled to meet journalists on September 11 to assess safety of journalists in the state.
The JFA, in a statement pointed out that most media persons in the Northeast worked without insurance cover and were subject to numerous threats from insurgents, surrendered militants, anti-insurgent government security agencies and even various so-called social organisations.
Assam scores highest in the list of casualties among journalists with more than 20 killed in the last 25 years.

The trend started in 1987 with the killing of Punarmal Agarwala, a local correspondent of The Assam Tribune in Nagaon by ULFA militants which was followed by the killing of veteran freedom fighter and journalist Kamala Saikia on August 9, 1991 in Sibsagar.
Among other prominent journalists killed in Assam are human rights activist and journalist Parag Das, Pabitra Narayan, Dipak Swargiary, Manik Deuri, Panja Ali, Nurul Haque, Ratneswar Sarma Shastri, Dinesh Brahma, Indramohan Hakasam, Prahlad Gowala, Bodosa Narzary, Mohammad Muslemuddin, Jagajit Saikia, Anil Majumdar, B P Talukder and Raihanul Nayum.
"Though Assam has recorded the highest number of casualties from the media in all these years, not a single perpetrator has been punished till date," JFA President Rupam Barua and Secretary Nava Thakuria alleged in a statement here.