NEW DELHI: The media fraternity has strongly protested the arrest of Shalabh Mani Tripathi, the Lucknow bureau chief of IBN7 news channel, as an attempt to gag the media for the recent coverage of rising crime graph in the state.
As the news of Tripathi‘s detention spread, a large number of media fraternity gathered outside the police station in Lucknow. He was released later after fellow scribes hit the streets.
Protesting the incident, journalists from across media organisations staged a demonstration near chief minister’s residence, after which the secretary to the chief minister told the reporters that the process of suspension of the police officers has been initiated.
Two senior journalists of IBN7 were also targeted and roughed up by senior police officers from the Lucknow administration on Sunday night when IBN7 refused to compromise and succumb under government pressure and bow down to their unreasonable demands in relation to this story.
Shalabh has been tracking deputy chief medical officer Dr Y.S. Sachan‘s death. In fact, Shalabh is the person who first broke Dr Sachan’s death story in Lucknow Jail and exposed the UP Government as to how they were trying to hush up the case by showing it to be a suicide and not murder, thus highlighting the loopholes in the probe and the versions given by the government.
The government was eventually forced to retract their earlier version and has now registered his death as a case of murder under pressure not just from the family but even from the medico legal fraternity within the Uttar Pradesh government and beyond.
IBN7 was also switched off/blacked out in entire UP on several occasions during last few weeks when the channel refused to compromise and succumb to the State administration’s pressures.
IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai said, “IBN7 is committed to uncover the truth and we will continue to highlight the facts despite these pressure tactics. We will not get fazed by these attempts to curb the freedom of press, in fact this makes our resolve stronger to stand for the truth”.
Speaking about the unfortunate development, IBN7 managing editor Ashutosh said, “This is the second time that an attempt to curtail the freedom of press is made by unruly elements who want to prevent us from bringing the facts; nothing can stop our committed journalists from unveiling the truth.”
