Free speech under assault

The arrest of journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumder in Assam simply for questioning the Managing Director (MD) of the Assam Co-operative Apex Bank about allegations of a multi-crore scam is yet another assault on press freedom. It is a journalists’ right to question financial irregularities in a bank where people deposit money and where they could lose their savings if the irregularities are not checked. Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma is one of the directors of the bank and a BJP MLA is the Chairman. Mozumder is chief reporter of Cross Currents a digital media platform. He was at the bank premises during a protest by the youth wing of an opposition political party demanding answers from the Bank MD. Mozumder was arrested on an FIR filed by an unnamed person. He was detained for several hours and neither his lawyer nor his wife could meet him. This is a clear violation of the law where the right to consult a legal counsel has been denied. Mozumdar had been writing reports on alleged financial irregularities in the Bank and he possibly stepped on some toes.
That Mozumdar is a Muslim only makes it worse for him in the state of Assam where Muslims are hounded as they in the rest of the country. The hurry with which the FIR was filed alleging that Mozumdar abused the security personnel who belongs to a minority community and the fact that the FIR was unnamed makes it rather strange. Why did the security guard who alleged that he was bad-mouthed not put down his name as the complainant? Was he really the complainant or was it a case of harassing a journalist on duty lest he finds something unsavoury in the manner in which the bank was managed? The Press Club of India, the Guwahati Press Club and several other media organisations have condemned Mozumdar’s arrest calling it an overreach. Their contention is that allegations of Mozumdar making caste-based remarks against the security guard should have been evidenced by others who heard the slur and have recorded it. As of now it is the complainant’s words against Mozumdar’s which makes the case inactionable. However, the message to media persons has gone out loud and clear that they cannot investigate anything even remotely connected with the powerful.
This is just one of hundreds of such incidents where journalists are put through the wringer for daring to question those in authority today. Journalists are killed in action and whereas many have taken the path of least resistance and compromised their loyalty to the profession by being lenient on the government and putting the opposition through a trial, there are a few who continue to plod on fearlessly. What is needed at this juncture is for journalists to stand in solidarity and fight out rather than yield to authoritarianism, for, a journalist’s creed is to question the powerful, more so those who hold the reins of governance and are custodians of the public purse.