New Delhi: The National Union of Journalists (India) on Tuesday condemned the Karnataka Assembly's decision to sentence two journalists to prison, terming it as "open attack" on the freedom of press.
In a joint statement, the NUJ(I) and its Delhi unit - Delhi Journalists' Association (DJA) - demanded that the state government move a resolution in the Assembly withdrawing the sentence. The statement said that if the legislators had any complaint against the journalists or the reports published in any newspaper, they should have approached the Press Council of India (PCI). "The state Assembly should not have taken such a drastic action against the scribes, as this will set a wrong precedent in the country," it said.
NUJ(I) president Ras Bihari said the union would send a fact-finding committee to Karnataka to know the ground realities. Demanding a high-level judicial inquiry into the episode, DJA president Manohar Singh stressed that the report of the inquiry committee should be submitted to the Press Council of India and the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court.
