The incident that took place at Latashil police station in the heart of the city on 31 January resulted in huge protest rallies by the media fraternity demanding the authority to book the blamed police officers under the laws.In fact, for three days the city scribes demonstrated their angers against the police atrocities in different occasions. The media persons also expressed apprehensions that the police commissionerate, which was introduced in Guwahati since 1 January 2015, would increase the police access on various public spaces.

The lady reporter and her camera person faced physical attacks from the policemen at Latashil police station in the heart of Guwahati city. The young reporter, who works for the Guwahati based satellite news channel DY365, went to the concerned police station with due permission with a aim to report about the pathetic condition of the quarter and barracks inside the Thana campus.

Everything was fine till the reporter found out that there was a quarter inside the PS campus, which was allegedly rented out to outsiders by a police officer. The reporter talked to a woman, who was staying inside the said quarters, though she claimed to be a close relative of a police sub-inspector. The concerned SI (Samsuddin Ahmed) was recently transferred from Latashil PS, but had not vacated the quarters. As the lady scribe talked to the woman in the quarter, the police men on duty informed the officer-in-charge of Latashil PS, Chidananda Bora about the matter. Bora immediately asked the media persons to withdraw the visual of the reporting, which the lady reporter declined to do. That ended in physical assault by the police men.

According to the FIR the lady scribe lodged in Latashil PS, she was targeted by both Bora and Ahmed (who was present there) and even touched her private parts. The police men snatched the camera, where the footage relating to news story was recorded, and asked the media persons to delete the same. When they did not comply, the situation turned ugly. The lady quickly called her other colleagues, who turned up at the station and were later joined by more journalists from other media outlets in the city, resulting in a demonstration inside the police station.

The incident took place at noon, but the protest demonstration continued till midnight. As a next step, a group of journalists with members of civil society groups assembled in front of Assam Secretariat on 2 February and demanded stringent punishment to the police personnel who assaulted the television scribes on duty. The police were quick to detain them, but more protesters joined them and the drama continued for the whole day.

Nava Thakuria

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