A Special Report from the Free Speech Hub of the Hoot.org

Executive summary:

The intimidation of journalists in the form of physical attacks, threats and initiation of legal proceedings against them has reached a peak in Orissa. There have been 12 physical attacks on reporters, stringers or camerapersons this year, and 6 cases of threat and intimidation, up from 3 attacks in 2009. Between 2004 and 2009, four cases of sedition were filed against stringers or reporters and a writer.

The attacks occurred either in retaliation for reports written or while the media- persons were on reporting assignments. The perpetrators fall in many different categories: sarpanchs(3), politicians and their henchmen (3), a bank manager, students, Central Industrial Security Force jawans, and Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) personnel. In three cases the police were present but chose not to act. Cases filed have not made much headway. (Details of cases and the current status of police complaints filed are in the annexure below this report.)

The profession of journalism is undergoing  changes in Orissa. This is partly an outcome of the rapid growth of the print and the electronic media as well as the hold that political parties and businesses have acquired over these. The most widely broadcast channels and the largest circulating daily are owned by powerful people. (See main report for details.) Given this reality, reporting the depredations caused by national and international business houses that have descended on the state to exploit its ample natural resources has become a perilous task.

As mining and industrialisation-related growth accelerates along with protests against these by the displaced populations, it is in the interest of the pro-development lobby to suppress all type of negative publicity. This is done by controlling the media through ownership, doling out largesse in the form of advertisements to others and intimidating those who cannot be neutralised by these. Among the worst affected are the faceless, and often nameless, stringers who form the feeder lines for the city-based media and have to bear the first brunt of media suppression by the powerful.
The attacks on journalists are inextricably linked to the changing equation between the state and civil society, brought about by the triumvirate of aggressive industrialisation, political interests and competitive media houses.
The state government either actively supports the corporations branding the critical media as Maoists, anti-national or seditious, or plays the role of a spectator. Its failure to take swift and punitive action in these cases has sent a clear message: the messenger can be shot.

This report by the Free Speech Hub Coordinator GEETA SESHU is based on visits to Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, and Jajpur (Kalinganagar). Telephonic interviews were conducted with journalists who were attacked in Behrampur, Angul and Athgarh.

I
Introduction
In recent months, Orissa has witnessed a spate of attacks on journalists and writers. There have been 12 physical attacks and six incidents of threats and intimidation from January to July 2010.
Since January this year, the Free Speech Hub has been tracking threats to freedom of speech and expression in India. We decided to document and investigate the incidents in Orissa to arrive at some understanding of their underlying causes.
Among other issues, those attacked have been reporting on the Maoist conflict, movements resisting displacement due to mining and steel projects, instances of corruption in government-sponsored projects like the NREGA, illegal activities of elected representatives, and have been covering spontaneous student protests or those of families of victims of medical negligence
These assaults on the media have been preceded by the Orissa government slapping four cases of sedition against journalists between 2004 and 2009. 
Attacks on journalists in 2010:
• On February 9, Dinesh Das and Ashok Pradhan, journalists from Pioneer and a local Orissa newspaper, Athgarh Prahari, respectively, were assaulted by Premananda Gochchayat, the Sarpanch of Dhaipur, Athgarh, for reporting on corruption in the NREGA scheme.
• On February 20, Abhay Pati, a reporter of OTV, was assaulted by the Manager of Cuttack Urban Co-operative Bank, Jajpur, Gour Prasad Das, when he was covering a vigilance raid on the banker’s house.

• On March 16, journalists covering a clash between members of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the opposition Congress party were attacked allegedly by BJD workers and police personnel in Bhaapur Block of Nayagarh district.
• On April 5, three journalists - Amulya Kumar Pati of the New Indian Express, Manas Jena and Sujit Mullick, stringers for Oriya newspapers -   were attacked by supporters of State Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei when they went to report a police lathi-charge and firing on villagers of Baligotha, Gobaghat and other villages in Kalinganagar on March 30.

• On April 22, ten journalists representing different newspapers and television channels were severely beaten up by the management and hired security guards of the privately-owned Silicon Institute of Technology in Bhubaneswar, when they went to cover students protesting the death of their colleague, Shamsuddin, allegedly due to food poisoning in the college canteen.

• On May 6, Biranjan Mallick, a journalist working for Khabar, an Oriya newspaper, was tied to a tree and beaten up for investigating an NREGA scam in Balanga, Puri district.

• On May 8, several jawans of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), a paramilitary force, attacked journalists and a television camera crew to prevent them from filming their assault on a truck driver who had fatally run over the young daughter of a CISF jawan in Angul.

• On May 31, journalists who went to MKCG Medical College, Behrampur, to cover a clash between relatives of a patient who had died due to the alleged negligence of the medical students in charge, were attacked by the students in full view of the police.

• On June 9, Akhand, a journalist working for Kanak TV in Pipili, Puri district, was severely beaten up by Pravakar Behera, a local politician and ward member of the ruling BJD, for writing about the latter’s illegal tree-felling.
 
• On July 1, Suryamani Mishra, a journalist working with Khabar who has written against communalism, land scams and the builder mafia, was attacked by unidentified persons in Bhubaneswar.

• On July 13, Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) personnel molested an ETV journalist (name withheld) and her cameraman, Debasis Mullick, when they were covering the ISKCON rath yatra in Bhubaneswar.

• On July 23, Ramnarayan Das, a reporter of ‘The Samaja, was assaulted by the former sarpanch of Nirakapur in Khurda district when he went to report on the self-immolation bid of a social worker. The attack took place in the presence of the area tahsildar and the police.

Threats and intimidation :
• On January 3, 2010, Banka Bihari Bishoi, a, reporter The Samaja, was abused and threatened by the Nabrangpur District Collector Rupa Mishra, ostensibly because his newspaper did not give the latter adequate coverage.

• On February 13, Bolun Gangopadhyay, a freelance journalist from West Bengal, who was on her way to Niyamgiri, site of the resistance to the Vedanta Alumina refinery and bauxite mining projects, was picked up by police on suspicion of being a Maoist.
• On March 11, the Chhatrapur police raided the residence of well-known journalist and writer, Dandapani Mohapatra, without a search warrant, alleging ‘links’ with Maoist leaders.
• On April 6, the Lok Pal, Justice P K Patra, was asked to take action against the media for reporting on his order on the irregularities in the acquisition of land for the Rs 15,000 crore Vedanta University project of the Anil Agarwal Foundation.

• On May 10, senior journalist and correspondent of India TV, Prasanta Patnaik protested the increasing surveillance and monitoring of his movements by police in Bhubaneswar and demanded security for himself and his family.

• On June 9, accomplices of a Bhubaneswar ganglord sent a dire warning to Bhabani Das, a photojournalist working for Orissa daily, The Dharitri, and asked him not to report on their activities.

Sedition cases between 2004-2009:

• In February 2004, Keerti Chandra Sahu, working for a Behrampur-based  Orissa daily, Anupam Bharat, was charged with sedition for allegedly aiding Maoists.

• In May 2007, Khaturam Sunani, a reporter working for OTV channel, was charged with sedition for filing a report that Pahariya tribals were consuming ‘soft’ dolomite stones (known locally as jhikiri) in Nuapada district due to acute hunger.

• On December 8, 2008, Lenin Ray, editor of Nissan, a radical literary magazine in Oriya, was picked up by police after a special booklet on the Kandhamal riots entitled ‘Dharmanare Kandhamalre Raktonadhi’ (Kandhamal’s rivers of blood) was published by the magazine.

• On September 20, 2009, Laxman Chaudhary, a stringer with Oriya daily, Sambad, was arrested by Mohana police in Gajapati district and charged with sedition for possessing Maoist literature. Chaudhury had been writing about the involvement of local police in illegal drug trafficking.

(For more details, see Attacks on journalists in Orissa – Annexure I)

II
Media in Orissa: Alongside the threats and attacks on journalists, the print and broadcast media are witnessing a major boom. Factors that have fuelled this growth include increasing urbanisation, higher literacy, access to modern printing technology and, very significantly, the entry of big business and the promise of advertising revenues.

Several new Oriya dailies and Oriya television channels have been launched over the last few years. The Eenadu-group’s ETV has an Oriya channel and the entry of big business into Orissa over the last 15 years has resulted in a marked interest of major English-language media houses too.Among  the national English dailies which  have an edition from the state capital Bhubaneswar, the latest is The Telegraph, which launched an edition on June 28, 2010. The others are the Times of India and the New Indian Express. The Hindu delivers an edition from Vishakapatnam with pages for Bhubaneshwar.  

The first Oriya newspaper, 'The Utkal Deepika', was launched in 1866 and several newspapers in Orissa were strongly nationalist, supporting the cause of the Oriya people as well as the freedom movement. Post-independence, the strong connection between politics and the media continued, with several Chief Ministers of the state launching their own newspapers. Today, there are over 85 Oriya newspapers and the interest of politicians in the media has remained a constant factor. 

 OTV, the biggest Oriya television channel, is owned by Ortel Communications and its managing director is Jaggi Panda, wife of the Rajya Sabha MP from the BJD, Baijayant Panda. The latter, is also non-executive chairman of Ortel and a promoter of the Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Limited (IMFA) group. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, son-in-law of former Congress-I Chief Minister J B Patnaik, owns Sambad, Orissa’s leading ‘Odia’ daily. Another daily, Dharitri, is owned by Tathagata Satpathy, the son of former Congress-I Chief Minister Nandini Satpathy.

Naxatra TV is owned by businessman Pravat Ranjan Mullick, also the promoter of Bhubaneswar College of Engineering and Kaustav group of technical institutes. The well-known Oriya newspaper Pragativadi,  is currently edited by Samahit Bal, son of the newspaper’s founder, the late Pradyumna Bal. Along with Dr Achyuta Samanta, the latter had also founded the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), which became a deemed university in 2004.

Voices from the media

“This phenomenon (of media growth) has been visible for the last ten years and coincides with the opening up of mining in the state,” said Sudhir Pattnaik, editor of a fortnightly news-magazine ‘The Samadrusti’.

This domination by politicians and corporations means that journalists cannot write and if they do, they aren’t sure of getting the support of the media houses they work for. It is no coincidence that most of the advertisements the media bags come from the mining industry, he said, adding that the lack of scrutiny of the operations of the industry contributed to the alienation of the media from the people of the state.

Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, also editor of ‘The Sambad’, concurs, “Odia (The Sambad has been championing the name-change from Orissa to Odisha and its news-reports religiously use ‘Odia’) media is highly politicised. The mining boom has also attracted attention and money, and the investment is huge. The media has also benefited from this money.”
The political parties control media and use media against the powers that be, he felt adding that the government is insensitive to the media because it does not depend on the media for electoral outcomes (the BJD is in its third term in power). “The Chief Minister doesn’t even speak the language of the people of Odisha and feels he can hold onto power without the media’s support,” he said.

The attacks on the media, Soumya Patnaik felt, were symptomatic of the larger state of affairs in Orissa, where corruption has reached a head and administration in several parts of the state, is practically non-existent. A divided opposition and a divided media do not help matters and the government is in a very convenient position to ignore the media, he said.

His newspaper, he added, fought for Laxman Chaudhury, along with all those who raised a voice then.  Patnaik said that Samvad pays its district correspondents, unlike other newspapers that operate with a network of stringers, `‘because I would like him to talk to the district collector without fear or favour.’’ His newspaper and television channel are seen as part of the ‘opposition’ in the state and have been harassed in the past. The launch of its television channel was also blacked out by cable operators. “But I’m very confident the worst is over. I can afford to tell the truth, whatever the cost,” he said.

The view from the ground may, however, be quite different. Nigamanand Mohanty, a senior journalist and stringer for Oriya daily ‘Surya Prava’, said, “Yes, in Jajpur there are now so many district correspondents – more than 150 in number. But we have numbers, but no security. We can’t write what we want and if we do and get beaten up, you think our press or media owners support us? And even if we try to write about something illegal, we are implicated in false cases and silenced.”

Mohanty is Working President of the Jajpur District Journalists Association and is blunt about the plight of stringers: “It is very difficult to do any independent news-gathering in this situation. I am working for the last 25 years but I was with Samvad. I had no job security, no documents and no identification. That is the plight of so many of these stringers. The government said it would enumerate the number of stringers and identify the journalists but this process has been going on for the last two years and nothing has been done so far.

Now, when this kind of attack takes place and we see no action from the police, we do fear for our lives, he said. Protests from journalists are lodged after every attack by the Media Unity for Freedom of the Press (MUFP), an informal association of journalists formed in 2009 after two journalists were charged with sedition for allegedly supporting Maoists.

The MUFP issues statements, holds protest demonstrations and submits a memorandum to the Chief Minister or local district administration and police officials. In Behrampur, journalists sat in a dharna outside the police station and even boycotted a tour of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to the district three days after the attack on journalists by medical students.  But this cuts no ice with the administration or the government and, in the absence of any concrete response, the message is clear: that the safety and security of media-persons is not a priority.

Senior journalists and civil liberties activists in Orissa are in agreement that the current spate of attacks and threats are a result of the sudden growth of the media and the entry of politicians and big business houses into the media industry, and the resistance to the rampant industrialisation in Orissa. 

 “I cannot state it as an empirical fact but I see a clear link between the rise in the number of attacks on journalists and the growing industrialisation in Orissa,” says Sampad Mahapatra, bureau chief of the television news-channel NDTV, in Bhubaneswar.

According to India TV Special Correspondent, Prasanta Patnaik, corporate houses have begun to play a major role in the state with the active support of the government and the political parties. Even media houses back corporate houses who give them advertisements. “The mining and real estate mafia was not here ten years ago, today they own media houses and have other businesses,” he says.

“This is a good time for the press. There’s a boom in revenues and advertising. The media has its own way of looking at things and it sometimes matches, sometimes there is a mismatch,” said Chandrabhanu Pattnaik, editor of one of the oldest Oriya dailies, ‘The Samaja’. He felt the attacks on the media were professional hazards though there were a few serious cases of assault whereas others may be highly ‘overrated’! The problem of stringers, he added, was endemic and owners must sit together to find a solution, he added.

If print and broadcast media is booming, internet media is still at a nascent stage, though there are several news websites in Orissa. Apart from Orissamatters.com and Oriyadiary.com, almost all the major Oriya dailies have their own websites. Basudev Mahapatra, editor of a news features site, hotnhitnews.com, said there is a tendency to undermine journalists in Orissa. The police act as protectors of corporates and the people said to be the most powerful in a democracy are cowering in fear, he said.

He rues the fact that there is no media policy towards news-sites. News websites need not be registered in the same manner as the print media is registered with the Registrar of Newspapers, therefore the state government also does not recognise them, much less accord them accreditation.

Even a survey of journalists in the state would help, felt Sarada Lahangir, special correspondent of the news-agency Asian News International (ANI). There is so much deprivation and hardly 40 per cent of those displaced by the industrialisation projects have been properly rehabilitated, she said, adding that journalists are simply not encouraged to question whether this kind of industrialisation can be undertaken at the cost of human beings.

Lahangir would also like to see greater professionalism and better training amongst journalists in responding to changing equations in Orissa, a sentiment echoed by Elisa Patnaik, a senior journalist. “Post-industrialisation, the biggest issue apart from displacement and development, is corruption. And it is very unfortunate how this is covered, especially by regional media,” says Patnaik. Most information is hearsay and there are no reliable sources or authentic quotes. The liberal use of allegations instead of specific information that would nail someone has severely questioned the credibility of the media, she said. 

Perils of journalism

Most journalists work or write for media houses that are run by business groups having interests in mining, real estate or education. While the staffers are hamstrung by these interests, the stringers who are attached in an informal manner to several newspapers or television channels are in a pathetic condition. Usually working for years with a newspaper, they are paid a fixed rate and on the basis of articles used. They are also given the task of space selling and collection of advertisements.

On several occasions, it is these stringers - in the field, closest to the scene of action in their district – who become the first targets of local powers. They have no status, documentation or identity proof of their role as journalists. Often, they get very little empathy from media-persons more professionally associated with a news organisation.

Although most attacks on journalists may look like isolated incidents, usually there is a background of some powerful person or agency being rubbed the wrong way. Akhand, who reports for Sambad, Kanat TV and Anupam Bharat, was beaten up by a local politician, Pravakar Behera, for writing about the latter’s illegal tree-felling in Pipili, Puri district. Akhand said that Behera had threatened him in 2006 over another matter and assaulted another journalist, Deenbandhu Beuria in 2008.

Some of the scribes may even be local activists who write and agitate on a host of civic, environmental and other issues. The MUFP, says Prasanta Patnaik, investigates each attack to determine whether the assault followed journalistic work or social activism. Rabi Das, for instance, is editor of Ama Rajdhani and an active member of the association. He is also involved in the agitation against POSCO.

“Today, the government manages media on behalf of corporate forces,” said Das, adding that most national newspapers don’t step out of urban areas to cover any issues. When journalists do go out to cover something and are attacked, their proprietors don’t back them, he pointed out.

Das, who decided to launch his own newspaper that would reach a readership beyond urban Orissa, also believes that the electronic media helps shape public opinion and has a far greater reach than print media. “Yes, they are all owned by business people with mining interests, but they have talk shows, they are competitive and need us to make their discussions lively,” he said, adding that he uses the electronic media to get a point of view across.
While corruption is a major issue, it is in the coverage of conflict and resistance to displacement or to industrial projects that the freedom to report without fear or favour has been most tested.

Most journalists stay away from venturing too deep into forest areas or conflict zones and miss out on the real story behind different conflicts. Some journalists of national newspapers rely heavily on the stringers, poorly paid and without any identity or recognition, and rarely venture out of the state capital. “They take the news and information, call up a few officials in the administration, get a few quotes and file their stories under their bylines!,” says Lahangir.
Travelling to zones of conflict is not impossible but journalists who do so must keep their wits about them, she advised. On one occasion, she went to Malkangiri for a story and passed a CRPF camp on the way. “We didn’t stop at the camp because we didn’t want the CRPF personnel to accompany us as they are a target for the Maoists much less did we want to be in a position where we would lead them towards the village and compromise the locals and our own local contact. The local contact is a crucial part of the process of sending a message to a village sarpanch that a journalist team was to visit,” she explained.

 “I have been writing consistently against police repression in the area and reporting the demands of the tribals. I think they should be heard. I agree with part of the proposition – that there can no development without industrialisation - but industrialisation at gun-point? The government itself admits that it’ll take 20 years for the mineral reserves in this area to be mined. What happens afterwards?,” asks Amulya Pati, the New Indian Express correspondent from Jajpur who was beaten up in Kalinganagar on April 5 this year.

Other journalists, he says, don’t ask these questions and are happy with the ‘pay packets’ they get from the company. The latter is clearly on a divide and rule course, not just with the media, but also between tribals who have taken the compensation and those who are still holding out.

The website ‘hotnhitnews.com’ covers corporate affairs extensively and Basudev Mahapatra has come under pressure for his articles. “Corporate houses tried to pressurize me to remove the reports on my site. Vedanta offered me advertisements on condition I do not write anything against the company – obviously indirectly. Recently, I kept getting telephone calls from someone criticising my articles on Kalinganagar. When I asked him his name, he refused to identify himself. He kept calling from different STD booths,” Mahapatra said.

On another occasion, his site was hacked and articles he posted on issues of displacement due to industrial projects were deleted! In 2008, his site was blocked for 15 days after an article on Kashipur. Sometimes, articles come on the web as gibberish, though they were uploaded correctly. It is only after changing the web administrator and becoming more technologically savvy himself, that he has been able to counter these attempts.

Sampad Mahapatra, while acknowledging the protection his association with a national media organisation like NDTV gives him, nevertheless feels that there is an ever-present sense of danger lurking for journalists in Orissa. He said that most average people in the state believe that the media and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) criticise the government’s policies because they are against development.

“Politicians have said as much in public speeches. There’s no civil society in Orissa, there’s no debate or discussion on this ‘development’, where the entire state is being dug up and sold. Ultimately, the job of questioning will fall on the media,” he said, adding that, when the government refuses to respond to the attacks on the media, it is actually sending a clear message to the media not to mess around.

The stringers, he rues, become easy prey as they work in risky, conflict ridden areas without recognition or press cards: “They are at the end of the information chain and if they are attacked, we – sitting in the state capital – are paralysed. The government, by targeting them, is cutting at our roots.” After Laxman Chaudhury was arrested in 2009, for instance, no journalist wanted to venture into the area for at least three months, he recalled. 

Sometimes, the best laid plans can go awry, as it happened with West Bengal-based journalist Bolan Gangopadhyay. She was detained on suspicion of being a Maoist near Rayaguda but didn’t have any documentation to prove her credentials as a journalist. She was also unable to disclose which village she was travelling to. She said she represented Ananda Bazaar Patrika but police contacted the newspaper and were told she was not a staffer. A flurry of telephone calls from civil society activists, journalists and others followed and it was established that she did in fact, freelance for the newspaper. Police decided to free her without any charge.

``But these kinds of incidents only try to paralyze us and confine us to the state capitals and urban areas,’’ felt Mahapatra, objecting to the detention of Gangopadhyay. “On what basis did they detain her? As a citizen of this country, doesn’t she have the freedom to go anywhere? Is this area a defence installation or have they put up a board that it is out of bounds?” he asked.

The local police, he added, said they had received intelligence reports that a number of Maoists were entering the state. Often, police scare journalists with threats of arrest on suspicion. But media-persons must have the freedom to venture into these areas as they act as a bridge between those in a conflict zone and the others, he felt.

III
 Economic development and a society in transition

Orissa’s subsistence economy has been changing rapidly ever since the economic reforms were set in place in the 1990s. The state has averaged a growth rate of 8.73 % in the first three years of the 11th Plan period, according to the Annual Economic Survey 2009-10.  The service sector contributed 55 % of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), industry 25 % and agriculture 20 %. The state’s high economic growth rate is largely due to the late burst of manufacturing activity in steel and mining. Orissa manufactures 10 % of India’s steel and has 25 % of the country’s iron ore reserves. As for aluminium, Orissa tops in terms of capacity as well as output.

The worrisome sector is the stagnating agriculture, which supports more than 60 per cent of its population. Crop yields compare poorly with national averages, irrigation also lags behind and so does the use of fertilisers.

Orissa is experiencing an unprecedented pace of industrialisation, fuelled by the influx of large-scale investments by international and national corporate houses, including the Tatas, Jindals, South Korean steel giant POSCO, UK-based Anil Agarwal group Vedanta and Arcelor-Mittal. The state government has signed around 100 Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) for thermal power plants, iron and steel mills, with capacities up to 12 million tonnes, aluminium factories and mining for iron ore, coal and bauxite. Roads and rail networks are also being set up, as are a host of ancillary industries and services.

The massive scale of industrialisation has displaced scores of villagers in project-affected areas. Here, resistance movements have sprung up and people of these villages have been pitted against various agencies – the administration, the police and security personnel of the disputed industrial plants. While the role of the media in covering these conflicts has been far from uniform, almost everyone agrees that the attacks on journalists are inextricably linked to the changing equation between the state and civil society, brought about by the triumvirate of aggressive industrialisation, political interests and competitive media houses.

IV
Role and response of state

Despite the frequency of these attacks, some of them violent, and the constant threat to freedom that it represents, the response of the State government, headed by Naveen Patnaik, has been tepid.

Numerous representations to Patnaik don’t yield any response beyond a polite ``we’ll look into it’’, says senior journalist Prasanta Patnaik, a driving force behind the Media Unity for Freedom of the Press (MUFP).
Indeed, Man Mohan Praharaj, Orissa’s Director General of Police, told this reporter that there may have been a few attacks “once in a while, here and there but these were not of a scale that should be of great concern.” He added, “Suddenly, there is a media explosion, especially with electronic media. Earlier, there were fewer journalists and there were a few unpleasant situations, but these were sorted out. The print media is civilized and writes in a responsible manner. But television journalists enter everywhere with their cameras and privacy issues do come up.”

When asked about the beating up of Amulya Pati in Kalinganagar, he said he had never heard of this case and did not wish to comment on individual cases. Regarding the case of Akhand in Puri where the Orissa State Human Rights Commission had directed police to take action within six weeks, the DGP said, “Offhand, I can’t respond to each and every case, but the police have limited resources and within this, we are trying to do our best.”

In Behrampur, for instance, where journalists were beaten up for covering a clash between medical students and relatives of a deceased patient, the police were working on the razor’s edge, he said. “The doctors are a powerful group and now have an act to protect them against assault while on duty. The media is all-powerful too and when journalists tried hectoring the doctors, trouble broke out,” he said.

The debate on industrialisation was a major one in Orissa, he added. “People have strong points and counter-points in this regard as a developmental model. This gets reflected in the media and journalists are on both sides of the divide. The unkindest cut is that the media becomes a pawn when two industrial houses compete for business,’’ he felt.
Competing business interests apart, what also queers the pitch is the role of the state government, perceived as supporting big business. Consider this: On March 17, 2010 Justice P K Patra, who is the state Lok Pal, passed an order on a complaint filed by Advocate Dwaraka Mohan Misra that all norms were violated when the state government handed over land to the Anil Agarwal Foundation for setting up the Rs 15,000 crore/- Vedanta University. The Lok Pal’s order, recommending a moratorium on the project was received by the complainant and covered extensively by television and print media.

On April 6, 2010, the Lok Pal received a communication from the Secretary of the Public Grievances & Pension Administration Department to initiate appropriate action as per Section 15 (5) of Orissa Lokpal and Lokayukta Act 1995 against journalists and media organizations that, according to him, have violated Section 15(4) of the said Act (No person shall publish any proceedings relating to investigation which is pending before the Lokpal or a Lokayukta, as the case may be, nor shall any person publish such proceedings after the investigation is complete) by publishing recommendations of the Lokpal on irregularities in the award of land to Vedanta University. So far, the Lok Pal has not responded to the letter.

V
 Response of Civil Society

Civil society activists, writers, artists and film-makers plough a lonely furrow when they speak out and protest against police repression or express resistance to government policies and programs. When the legitimacy of protest is itself in question, legitimate forms of protests simply don’t exist, say a number of civil society activists and representatives of civil liberties organisations.

Pramodini Pradhan, a member of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) is worried at the silencing of civil society from within as well as from without. “Today, there is a fear psychosis prevalent in Orissa. Recently, a television journalist said that the phones of several civil society activists, including mine, were being tapped, so people have become overly cautious,” she laughs. But what is more serious, she feels, is the complete lack of debate or discussion on issues like displacement, development or police repression.

“School-children are taught that Orissa is a poor state and their school textbooks  list out the natural resources the state has. They are taught that the only way out of this poverty is to exploit these natural resources. So when we speak out and question this model of development, we are branded as being unpatriotic,” said Surya Shankar Dash, a young film-maker who has made a series of short films on varied issues under the banner of Madhyantar.

Dash’s films on Vedanta were uploaded on Youtube last year. “I had at last 40 short videos, comprising 90 minutes of strong documentary evidence of Vedanta’s attempt to grab land from adivasis in Niyamgiri. But just before the company’s annual general meeting in London, my account was hacked into and all the videos were deleted,” he said.
Dash, who has been trying to get adivasis to shoot their own videos and record police crackdowns, finds there is less room for debate now in Orissa. Reporters from the urban centres have stopped going to Niyamgiri while local journalists are either under pressure or have been bought over, he said.

For Prafulla Sanatra, a convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), the media’s unwillingness to cover stories of displacement and conflict was of greater concern. Civil society initiatives on the resistance movements that have sprung up often draw a blank when it comes to media coverage. “Our press conferences are not covered, our articles not printed or even letters to the editor don’t find any space. When Maovadis speak of exploitation, there is no news, when adivasis say they won’t leave their land, there is no news. Is this not silencing people’s dissent?” he asked.
Prashant Paikara, a spokesperson for the POSCO Prathirodh Sangram Samiti, which has decided to reject the state government’s package declared on July 8, is battling a different kind of censorship: misrepresentation. “The media reports that we allowed the survey and are willing to take the compensation. The Chief Minister said he’d visit the site but never came. We burnt a copy of the package but this is not reported. We have a peaceful, democratic movement, but the media alleges that the Maoists are spearheading the movement. There is not a single Maoist here but the media doesn’t write that. What can you expect when 30-40 journalists are taken to South Korea by POSCO, given gifts and advertisements?’’ he asked.

The charge of being a Maoist is a familiar one for Rabi Jharika, spearheading the struggle of adivasis in Kalinganagar. “It took the deaths of 14 tribals for people to understand that we are against this kind of development. We can’t leave our land but when we resist, we are branded as Maoist and all kinds of false charges are levelled against us,” he says, pointing out that those who already gave up their lands have lost their money, have no jobs and are reduced to begging. The tribals in the transit camps are battling illness but none of this is written about, he rues.

Debranjan Sarangi, writer, film-maker and activist has faced the heat from Hindutva forces for short stories he has written against communalism in a monthly literary magazine, Bijaya. It is only over the last few years that people in Orissa have become more aware of issues related to displacement and rampant mining of natural resources, but the media’s branding of all movements against displacement as ‘Maoist’ is unfortunate and inaccurate, he feels. “The Maoists have not declared their position on mining and displacement. They have spoken out against police firing and repression but I haven’t read anything about their views on industrialisation,” he said.

Lenin Kumar, the editor of Nissan, who was arrested on charges of sedition in 2008, still finds it difficult to bring out his magazine. “No one is willing to print it. As soon as they see my name, they refuse to print it. I think even if we have Aishwarya Rai on the cover of Nissan, no one will be ready to print it,” he says wryly.

The charge of sedition, archaic though it may be, is strong enough to deter more faint-hearted people. Journalist Keerti Sahu, who was charged with sedition in 2004 for reporting on Maoists, says that several people stopped talking to him and avoided him for a few months after he was charged with sedition. “A lot of people doubted me though I’ve worked for so many years,” he said. But the experience only made him more determined. “I figured that if you write the truth, you’ll have to go to jail, one time or the other, so I’m going ahead with my writing and reporting,” he said.
VI

Conclusions
The Orissa State Government’s failure to take swift and punitive action in these cases has sent a clear message: the messenger can be shot. The government’s inaction stems from its anxiety to keep all its customers, especially big business and the upper middle-classes, satisfied.

The media’s links with big business or politicians ensures that they essentially compete rather than collaborate. The resultant fragmentation has prevented the launching of a broad and effective campaign against assaults on the media.
More often than not, stringers and freelancers are at the receiving end of these assaults, and need to be more vigorously protected and defended by newspaper companies as well as their colleagues and organisations.

The lack of a strong and united journalist organisation has facilitated the rampant attacks on the media. The formation of the Media Unity for Freedom of the Press appears to be a step in the right direction.

Contact: editor@thehoot.org , freehub@thehoot.org                                                        Telephone: Sevanti Ninan 9811126312, Geeta Seshu 919892214601

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ANNEXURE I

List of incidents from January 2010 till date

Attacks

February 9: Dinesh Das and Ashok Pradhan, journalists with Pioneer and a local Orissa newspaper Athgarh Prahari respectively, were investigating reports that the local sarpanch, Premananda Gochchayat of Dhaipur gram panchayat, was executing the Baikani Water Reservoir Project works, an NREGA project, using JCB machines and tractors instead of engaging job-card holders. When they began clicking photographs and taking videos of the work, the sarpanch snatched their cameras and assaulted them.

The journalists lodged an FIR in the local police station and the sarpanch filed a counter complaint under the Prevention of Atrocities Act as he belongs to a scheduled caste. Fearing arrest the journalists have not even gone to the police station to enquire about their own complaint. Das said, “We were repeatedly abused and told we would be taught a lesson. The police have assured me they won’t arrest me but how can I trust them? They haven’t dropped the charges against us. I haven’t gone to the area all these months.” No action has been taken so far.

February 20: Orissa TV journalist, Abhay Pati, was manhandled by the Manager of Cuttack Urban Co-operative Bank, Jajpur, Gour Prasad Das, when he was covering a vigilance raid on the banker’s house. A complaint with the police has not led to any action so far.

March 16: Journalists covering a clash between members of the ruling Biju Janta Dal (BJD) and the opposition Congress party were attacked by BJD supporters in Bhaapur Block of Nayagarh district. Despite the presence of police and their appeals to the police to rescue them from the brick-batting, the latter allegedly failed to do so. The journalists alleged that police personnel also helped the political party hoodlums in attacking them.

A complaint was lodged with the police and the local administration and a memorandum submitted to the district collector demanding exemplary action within a week against the police personnel responsible for the attack. No action has been taken.

April 5: Three journalists were attacked by supporters of the State Finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei when they went to report a police lathi-charge and firing on villagers of Baligotha, Gobaghat and other villages on March 30. The villagers were opposing the construction of a common corridor in the area. Several villagers who were badly injured and had sustained bullet injuries were too frightened to seek medical help and this was what the journalists went to cover when they were attacked.

Amulya Kumar Pati of the New Indian Express, and Manas Jena and Sujit Mullick who worked for Oriya newspapers, were assaulted in the presence of the police. The were covering a morcha organised by the Orissa state president of the BJP, Jual Oram. The latter and a few of his supporter were also attacked.

“I was mercilessly beaten up,” Pati said, adding that the police and local security guards of the Tata Steel Co had marked him because of his earlier reports about the area. Kalinganagar has been the site of a major dispute with the Tata company as villagers organised under the banner of the Bisthapan Birodhi Jan Manch (BBJM) had opposed any surrender of land for the mega project.

In 2006, 13 tribals died in police firing when they protested against the takeover of their land. In February this year, a new collector, Pramod Mohanty, tried to begin construction work on a 7.5 kilometre `common corridor’ road to the Tata project, using 300 acres of land and running through four villages that are the main areas of resistance today. “The villagers protested this but on March 28, 800 armed police began entering villages and beating up the villagers. An old man was fatally wounded and died later in hospital. Several villagers hid in fear and were unable to seek medical aid,” he says, adding that when journalists reached the spot, police did not allow them to enter a cordoned off area.

Pati, along with Prafulla Das of The Hindu and freelance journalist Nachiketa Desai, managed to sneak into a village, took pictures and returned to report the plight of the villagers. “I wrote a piece for my newspaper, The New Indian Express, headlined ‘Kalinganagar off-limits even for scribes’ and I think the fact that I managed to enter an area under siege and take pictures angered the police. So when BJP leader of the opposition Jual Oram announced his decision to visit the site on April 5, police had clamped down Sec 144 in the area and began pushing back the BJP leader and his supporters,” Pati said.

Jena said, “I began clicking pictures but the security people snatched my camera and roughed me up. Mullick’s camera was also snatched and he was pushed aside.” Pati then took out his camera to take pictures but was spotted. “They recognised me and started beating me up mercilessly. They smashed my camera, my mobile phone and even took away my pen drive,’’ he said. Chased by the security and police, he ran over a burning tyre and sustained burn injuries on his feet.
Pati filed an FIR naming Ghadei’s son, Pritiranjan Ghadei and Babuli Haiburn, in charge of the Tata transit camp along with three others. Two persons were arrested in connection with the incident but others mentioned in the FIR, including Pritiranjan Ghadei and Babuli Haiburn, continue to roam free. Jajpur SP, D S Kuttiye refused to answer questions on the incident.
April 22: Ten journalists representing different newspapers and television channels in Orissa were severely beaten up by the management and hired security guards of Silicon Institute of Technology, a private educational institute, when they went to cover a student protest on campus. The students were protesting the death of a student, allegedly due to food poisoning, in the college canteen. When journalists heard of the incident, they rushed to the campus but were denied entry. The journalists tried meeting the students but were told that the students were confined to a room and were not being allowed out.

In the tension that followed, the journalists managed to enter the campus, only to be beaten up. Several journalists sustained injuries and their cameras were damaged in the process.

Subsequently, an advertisement war of sorts over the issue broke out in Orissa newspapers. First, an advertisement issued by the Orissa Private Engineering Colleges Association (OPECA) appeared in several newspapers stating that the “allegation against the Directors and employees of Silicon Institute of Technology for allegedly manhandling the media is absolutely false and fabricated”. Later, in another advertisement, the association admitted the incident and offered an unconditional apology. But some members of the association disassociated themselves from this advertisement the next day and allegedly tried to prevail upon the city Police Commissioner to drop charges under 307 IPC (attempt to murder) levelled against the assailants.

A complaint was lodged with the city police against ten persons for the assault.
The accused were arrested but granted bail since no case diary was made of the complaint. 

May 6: Biranjan Mallick, a journalist working for Khabar, an Oriya newspaper in Balanga, Puri district, was attacked by the Sarpanch of Suninda village and his supporters a day after a report was published in his newspaper regarding irregularities in National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA) scheme. The attackers are allegedly affiliated to the ruling Biju Janata Dal.

Sarpanch, Asok Kumar Dash, and his supporters were angry when they saw a vigilance team making enquiries about the NREGA scam in the village. The journalist was tied to a tree and thrashed. His mobile phone and valuables were snatched and he could only be rescued by other journalists who reached the spot.

Balanga police registered a case under The Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 and three persons were arrested but the prime accused, the sarpanch, is still at large.

May 8: Several jawans of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), a paramilitary force, attacked journalists and a television camera crew to prevent them from filming their assault of a truck driver who ran over the daughter of a CISF jawan. ETV reporter Jagadananda Pradhan, sustained severe injuries and his camera was also destroyed in the process.

A complaint was lodged with the CISF but no action has been taken so far.

May 31: Journalists who went to cover a clash between relatives of a patient who died in MKCG Medical College due to the alleged negligence of medical students attending to him, were attacked by the students. The police were present at the spot.

Journalists said that they received news that a patient who was being operated upon by medical students instead of a doctor or specialist died on the operating table due to an overdose of anaesthesia. Relatives of the patient began attacking the hospital and the journalists began covering the clash when they were beaten up. Their cameras were damaged, their cash and valuables snatched and they were driven out of the campus.

A complaint was filed in the Baidyanathpur police station however no cognisance was taken of it. The journalists have demanded the transfer of the Behrampur Superintendent of Police, Safeen Ahmed.

June 9: Akhand, a journalist working for Kanak TV in Pipili, Puri district, had written about the illegal tree-felling by a local politician and ward member of the ruling BJD, Pravakar Behera. When Akhand was returning home Behera stopped his motorcycle and began abusing him. He then forcibly pushed Akhand down and began beating him and assaulting him with a sharp weapon. He also snatched his gold chain and warned him against reporting the matter to the police.

A complaint was filed in Pipili police station. Another was filed on June 11 before R N Bahida, Chairperson of the Orissa State Human Rights Commission. No action was taken by the local police station. On July 6, the Orissa State Human Rights Commission ordered the Superintendent of Police, Puri, to submit a report on the inaction of local police within six weeks.

July 1: Suryamani Mishra, a journalist working with Oriya daily Khabar, in Bhubaneswar, was walking home at night after his duty when two people attacked and abused him. He is well known for writing against communal issues, land scams and builder mafias.

When the journalist lodged a complaint with Bhubaneswar police he was told that it was a random attack by drunkards and no action could be taken against them

July 13: An ETV woman journalist was molested and a cameraman assaulted by Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) personnel while covering the ISKCON rath yatra in Bhubaneswar. The woman reporter (name withheld) and Debasis Mallick, camera-person of ETV were assigned to cover the rath yatra.

While the lady reporter went near the chariot/rath, an IRB member, identified as Nrusingha Chandra Sahu, molested her and when she protested, another IRB jawan joined him. He also tried to molest her, despite the presence of several police personnel and public. Soon the camera person, Debasis, went to her rescue and protested their behaviour. When the IRB men realised that he was filming them they started attacking Debasis brutally and broke his video camera into pieces. Journalists state that two Bhubaneswar police officers, who witnessed the assault, chose not to interfere and simply walked away from the scene.
 
The woman reporter and the camera-person filed an F.I.R. with Nayapalli Police Station and identified the culprits in the presence of Bhubaneswar DCP Himanshu Lal and other officers. Both the accused were arrested and sent to judicial custody. However, they filed an FIR against the journalists and this was taken on record as the first FIR, though it was filed more than one hour after the FIR filed by the journalists.

July 23: Ramnarayan Das, a reporter of ‘The Samaja, was assaulted by the former sarpanch of Nirakapur in Khurda distritc when he went to report on the self-immolation bid of a social worker. The attack took place in the presence of the area tahsildar and the police.

The social worker had announced his intention to immolate himself in front of the office of the local Revenue Inspector to protest the official inaction against destruction of the eco-system by local mining mafias and the tahsildar and police officials had gone to the spot to dissuade him.

The journalist was interviewing the tahslidar when members of mining mafia threatened him and warned him against reporting the issue. When the journalist protested this attempt at intimidation, the former Sarpanch Subas Dalasinghroy attacked him and he was rendered unconscious. Police and the tahsildar present at the spot were unable to stop them.

A case (No.62/10) u/s 294, 323, 324 and 506 IPC has been lodged but no arrests have been made. 

Threats and intimidation

January 3: Banka Bihari Bishoi, a, reporter of ‘The Samaja’, an Oriya daily, was abused and threatened by the Nabrangpur District Collector, Rupa Mishra. The latter apparently took umbrage because the newspaper the journalist represented had been ignoring her! The journalist had gone to report on some issue and was talking to the District Welfare Officer, Mukund Nihal, when the incident occurred.

According to the journalist, Mishra wanted to know why he had come to the office of the Collector and told him to leave immediately. The shocked journalist could barely react when she continued: ‘mora naama o photo Samajare kahinkin prakash paunahin?’ (Why are my name and pictures not appearing in Samaja?). The Superintendent of Police, Nabrangpur, was present when the incident occurred.

No action has been taken despite a complaint being lodged with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

February 13: Bolan Gangopadhyay, a senior woman journalist from West Bengal was detained at Muniguda police station while on her way to the Niyamgiri area. The journalist claimed to be representing the Ananda Bazar Patrika, Kolkata but did not have proof for this. When the newspaper also informed the police that she did not work with them, the police detained her. Gangopadhyay, it was learnt, was not a staffer but freelanced for the newspaper and several journalists, representatives of media organisations and civil liberties groups had to intervene on her behalf to obtain her release without charge.

March 11: Police in Chhatrapur raided the residence of well-known journalist and writer Dandapani Mohapatra in Chungudikhol, Ganjam district without any search warrant, while he was away from home. During the raid, one police officer said that his house was raided because of his alleged links with Naxal leaders.

Mohapatra, general secretary of the Dakhina Odisha Sahitya Sammilani for over 25 years, is well-known for his independent thinking and has regularly written about corruption and nepotism. He later said that five van loads of police belonging to five police stations reached his home and virtually terrorised his family members. They broke open all the boxes and packets containing books, newspapers and personal documents, seized old copies of Ghadaghadi  magazine (now defunct) and some other magazines, which he had collected and preserved in his personal library. Then the police forced his son Gautam Buddha Mohapatra to sign on some blank papers. The local Sarpanch was also asked to sign on some plain papers.

No action has been taken despite strong protests from journalists and civil liberties organisations.
 
April 6: The Secretary of the Public Grievances & Pension Administration department, Orissa, has addressed a letter to the State Lokpal to initiate appropriate action as per Section 15 (5) of Orissa Lokpal and Loayukta Act 1995 against journalists and media organizations for violating Section 15(4) of the Act by publishing recommendations of the Lokpal in cases against Vedanta University.

On March 17, 2010 Justice P K Patra, who is the state Lok Pal, passed an order on a complaint filed by Advocate Dwaraka Mohan Misra that all norms were violated when the state government handed over land to the Anil Agarwal Foundation for setting up Vedanta University. The Lok Pal’s order, recommending a moratorium on the project was received by the complainant and covered extensively by television and print media.

On April 6, 2010, the Lok Pal received a communication from the Secretary of the Public Grievances & Pension Administration department to initiate appropriate action as per Section 15 (5) of Orissa Lokpal and Lokayukta Act 1995 against journalists and media organizations that, according to him, have violated Section 15(4) of the said Act by publishing recommendations of the Lokpal on irregularities in the award of land to Vendanta University. So far, the Lok Pal has not responded to the letter.

May 10: Protesting the presence of police and security personnel outside his residence for several days and their surveillance and monitoring of his activities, senior journalist and correspondent of India TV, Prasanta Patnaik wrote to Bhubaneswar city police commissioner B K Sharma to demand safety and security for himself and his family.

Patnaik said that the surveillance had begun soon after he raised a protest about the attack on journalists in Silicon Institute of Technology in Bhubaneswar on April 22 as well as the attack on journalists in Kalinganagar, Jajpur district, on April 5.
 
In his letter, Patnaik said: “I fear the police and corporate, including the education mafias, against whom I have raised voice in different forums have joined hands to victimize me and my family members, by hatching a deep rooted conspiracy against me. Since such people, including the police have got money power, muscle power and political power, I fear, they might hatch some conspiracy to harass/defame/ assault me at earliest opportunity to silence my voice against corruption, mafia raj, nepotism and criminalization in different fronts.”

The surveillance and police presence outside his residence stopped as soon as the letter was received but he received no formal communication from the Police commissioner.

June 9: Associates of an accused in a local criminal matter forced their way into the house of Bhabani Das, a photogapher working for an Orissa daily, The Dharitri, and roughed up his younger brother. They also threatened his family members and issued a warning against Das’s reportage.

A complaint was lodged with the Airfield police station but the accused, though identified, are still at large.

Sedition

At least four cases of sedition were slapped on journalists and writers between 2004-2009 and it was the last two cases, barely a few months apart, against Laxman Chaudhury, a stringer with Orissa daily, Samvad, and Lenin Kumar, editor of a radical literary magazine, Nissan, that galvanised public opinion in Orissa on threats to freedom of speech and expression.

The list of cases:
 

On February 14, 2004, Keerti Chandra Sahu, working for a Behrampur-based  Orissa daily, Anupam Bharat, was called to the police station ‘for a chat’. He was kept in the police station for several hours. Restless, he told the police he wanted to leave as he had other work. At this point, he was told that he was under arrest for ‘aiding Naxals’. Sahu was charged with sedition.

Sahu said that he used to write consistently about the plight of tribals in Kashipur and the problems created by the Utkal Alumina plant of the Aditya Birla group. But what raised the ire of local police was his report that a top Maoist leader, Sabyasachi Panda, had gone to his village to attend the funeral of his father but his presence went undetected by police and intelligence agencies.

Subsequently, Sahu wrote about two junior engineers who had been extorting money from locals allegedly on behalf of the Maoists. Panda wrote a letter to Sahu denying the involvement of the Maoists in this extortion. Sahu published this letter in his newspaper. Then, he said, an elaborate trap was laid by police to book him for links to Maoists.
Police arrested the junior engineer and the latter allegedly implicated Sahu in extortion. Later, he confessed that he was forced by police to give a false statement implicating Sahu.

Sahu was charged under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 124-A (sedition) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. A charge-sheet has been filed but the trial has not started as yet.  The media pressure on his case helped him secure bail and he is now a reporter of OTV. He continues to cover trouble spots, including Malkangiri and Koraput.

In May 2007, Khaturam Sunani, a reporter working for OTV channel, had filed a report that Pahariya tribals were consuming ‘soft’ dolomite stones (known locally as jhikiri) in Nuapada district due to acute hunger and food deprivation. The news caused a major controversy and embarrassment for the state government.

Sunani and another journalist, Meghnad Khersel, were charged by Sinapali police station under Sec 124-A (sedition) and 417 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.

Though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik assured journalists that the cases would not be pursued, there was no response to the demand of journalists that charges of sedition be dropped.

On September 20, 2009, A stringer with Oriya daily, Sambad, Laxman Chaudhury, was arrested by Mohana police in Gajapati district and charged with sedition for possessing Maoist literature. The arrest sparked a protest from journalists in Orissa. Chaudhury was finally released on bail on December 3, 2009 on the orders of the Orissa High Court.

Chaudhury was asked for his identification but being a stringer, he did not possess any identity card or documents issued by the newspaper he contributed for.  Police said they had recovered leaflets issued by Maoists from Chaudhury’s possession, but this was denied by the latter. According to Chaudhury, the trouble really started because he had reported the seizure of a truck carrying ‘ganja’ (drugs) but local police, who were also involved in the illegal trade, had asked him not to disclose this news.

Since he did not comply, the local officer in charge was angry with him and this might be one reason for his arrest. Chaudhury was charged with different sections under the Indian Penal Code, including 120A (criminal conspiracy), and section 124A (sedition).

What vindicated Chaudhury’s stand that he was innocent and had been framed was the arrest of the same police officer on charges of drug-running, by the state vigilance squad, a few months later. However, sedition and other charges against Chaudhury, remain.

Editor of ‘Nissan’, a radical literary magazine in Oriya, Lenin Ray or Lenin Kumar, was picked up by police on December 8, 2008, after a special booklet on the Kandhamal riots entitled ‘Dharmanare Khandamalre Raktonadhi’ (The rivers of blood in Kandhamal) was published in the magazine. Police had been keeping a watch on him and monitoring his stand on different issues, especially after the riots. The Jagatsingpur superintendent of police had also issued a statement that Nissan was a Maoist magazine.

Lenin was picked up by two plainclothesmen at around 1.30 a.m. and his house was raided. Police also arrested the manager and two press workers of Shobham Press, a commercial printing press that had published the book. He was not told the reasons for his arrest and a bail plea was rejected. The charges against him included sedition, 153A (a) and (b), 295A and 34 of the IPC.

Amidst widespread protests from media and civil liberties organisations, another plea was moved before the Sessions Court and on December 17 and he was granted bail on condition that he and the other accused shall ‘not involve themselves in any further act of the alleged type, appear before the investigating officer as and when required and not leave the state of Orissa without the prior permission of the Court’.

Attacks (2009)

Jagannath Bastia, a representative of Oriya daily Samaj, was attacked on November 7, 2009 in Puri by unidentified persons who were allegedly the supporters of local legislator Maheswar Mohanty. Bastia had been writing about the land-grabbing by politicians belonging to the ruling party and officers of the civil body and their violation of High Court rulings and government directives. He was also head of the State Beach Protection Council which had been fighting for the conservation of the beaches of the state. He had earlier exposed the work of Mohanty, who, as chairman of the Puri Municipality, had illegally granted huge land to a hotelier in the prohibited underground sweet water zone that supplies drinking water to the city.

Bastia, who was hit on the head while returning home on his Scooty, fell down and was again attacked. He was rushed to the district headquarter hospital in a critical condition. Basatia’s complaint to the Kumbharpara police has not led to any action.

In September 2009, Sriharsa Mishra and Kiran Mishra, journalist from Oriya daily ‘Aromv’, were abused and assaulted by the security guard and employees of the Jharsaguda collector’s office. The journalists wanted to know why the district collector had not visited the villages where a number of farmers had committed suicide and what the administration had done about the death of farmers in the district.

An FIR has been lodged by Sriharsa at Jharsuguda Police Station but no action has been initiated by the police.