Assam Rifles jawans assaulted journalists and detained them at a security post for two hours on Wednesday for covering protest rallies over the alleged rape of an 18-year-old girl by a personnel of the post. The journalists were asked to erase all the photographs which captured the “excesses†of the AR personnel, the Imphal Free Press reported.
The All-Manipur Working Journalists Union (AMWJU) has decided to cease work and boycott all Assam Rifles and Army coverage till appropriate action is taken against the accused jawans. Holding the state government responsible for its failure to reign in security forces under its command, the organisation has also decided to boycott the first session of the Assembly due to begin Friday.
Representatives of the union on Thursday met Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh and submitted a memorandum urging him to take appropriate action. The chief minister reportedly contacted the GOC 57 Mountain Division and assured the journalists that he would convene a meeting on March 17, the Statesman reported.
According AMWJU, two journalists were assaulted by the Assam Rifles jawans when they went to cover protest rallies by villagers of Veitum Khullen near the Kotlien post along NH-53 in Senapati district. Four reporters were later herded into the post and were detained till an AMWJU team along with Col Rajesh Misra PRO Defence came to their rescue. At the post, the journalists were repeatedly asked by the jawans to delete the photographs of the protestors being dispersed, the Statesman said.
Among the assaulted journalists, G Gagan Sharma, a reporter of ISTV was threatened first with a large wooden piece, then with a pointed bamboo stick, and afterwards slapped by a jawan, the Imphal Free Press said.
The other reporter, Th Brojen of Ireibak, was also threatened with a gun butt and dragged by his collar. He said that the Assam Rifles personnel charged reporters with instigating the mob while the truth was the women had been protesting in front of the post since 10 in the morning demanding that the alleged rapist be produced before them. The jawans lathicharged the protestors in which many women were injured.
AMWJU president Bijoy Kakchingtabam said all this was done even as the scribes identified themselves as reporters. He denied the Army claim that all this had been done “in the heat of the moment†and that the reporters had instigated the villagers to throw stones at the jawans.
“The villagers were already protesting and our reporters were assaulted after the mob had been dispersed,†Kakchingtabam said. The villagers had attacked the Assam Rifles post demanding handing over of the jawan who had on March 13 allegedly raped the 18-year-old girl while she was washing clothes at a spring.
According to villagers and the victim, the jawan who was drunk, came across the girl washing clothes alone at the spring and began molesting her. When she raised a hue and cry, the jawan hit her with a stone and she fell unconscious. When she regained sense she found out that she had been fully disrobed. After realising what had happened to her, the girl ran from the place dodging the jawan. After reaching her village, she went to the nearby Assam Rifles post to lodge a complaint.
The jawan did not return to the post and was nabbed by villagers. The jawan, however, managed to escape to the post where the villagers descended with sticks and bamboo poles. After the Assam Rifles refused to hand over the accused, villagers attacked the post forcing the jawans to retaliate. In the ensuing crackdown, several women and villagers were injured, some of them seriously.
