Tripura: PCI Condemns Action Against Journalists Under UAPA

The Press Club of India (PCI) India has strongly condemned the Tripura police's action against the journalist as well other innocent citizens for social media posts on communal violence in the state.

The PCI in a statement on Wednesday said it was shocked that the Tripura government is 'arm-twisting, beating up and arresting media persons along with scores of innocent citizens during communal violence in the state.'

The scribes' body strongly castigates the slapping of draconian laws such as UAPA by the state police on Shyam Meera Singh, a journalist, for his merely tweeting on violence and opines that is an attempt to intimidate the journalists to suppress their voice.

The PCI in its statement demanded that UAPA be withdrawn immediately and urged the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of 'communal cauldron being ignited in Tripura'.

PCI President Umakant Lakhera and Secretary General Vinay Kumar in its statement said, "At this point of time when state machinery is blindfolded and deliberately taking no cognizance of unlawful acts of perpetrators, PCI demands that the Supreme Court take suo moto notice of communal cauldron being ignited in the state."

A mosque was vandalized and two shops were set ablaze at Chamtilla in Tripura during a rally by Vishva Hindu Parishad on October 26, against the communal violence in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Three houses and a few shops, reportedly owned by Muslims, were also ransacked in nearby Rowa Bazar.

The Tripura government had on October 29 alleged that a group from outside with vested interests had hatched a conspiracy against the administration to create unrest in Tripura and malign its image by uploading fake photographs of a burning mosque on social media after the October 26 incident.

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