The Northeast Media Forum (NEMF) has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure the safety of journalists in the region. NEMF appealed to the prime minister to ensure that journalists can carry out their professional duties in the region without fear of physical harm.
NEMF, an organisation of over 100 journalists hailing from the Northeast region and working in the national capital, in a letter to Singh said, "As you must be aware of, mediapersons in the entire Northeast work under highly-adverse conditions of low salaries, lack of insurance, and risk of bodily injury by those whose misdeeds they expose through their writings."
The latest instance of attacks on journalists in the region was the killing of Mohammad Muslimuddin, a journalist working for Assamese daily Asomiya Pratidin, on April 1. Muslimuddin, who was also the president of Morajhar Press Club, was killed by miscreants while he was returning home on his bicycle at Morajhar near Hojai town in Assam’s Nagaon district. He was said to have been killed for reporting about instances of criminal-politician nexus in the area he hailed from.
Since 1987, about 20 media professionals have been killed in Assam and most of the cases have remained unsolved.
In Manipur too, the news media has been under pressure to function freely, with pressures from both security forces and underground militant groups to obey their diktats. All news media in the state stopped operations on March 21 following threats to four journalists from a faction of the People’s United Liberation Front (PULF).
