Militants ban paper for not publishing its statement

Widely-circulated popular Manipuri daily Poknapham on Monday failed to hit stands because of an 'indefinite ban' imposed on the paper by militant outfit Kangleipak Communist Party-Military Council (KCP-MC), sources in the newspaper office said.

Widely-circulated popular Manipuri daily Poknapham on Monday failed to hit stands because of an ‘indefinite ban’ imposed on the paper by militant outfit Kangleipak Communist Party-Military Council (KCP-MC), sources in the newspaper office said.

They said KCP-MC had imposed ‘indefinite ban’ on the paper for not publishing a statement issued by them on the front page of the paper which carried it in its inside pages.

Sources said it was not yet known whether they would produce Tuesday’s edition of the paper.

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The All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) and senior editors of different dailies held an emergency meeting and discussed the ‘ban’ imposed on Poknapham by the militant outfit.

A spokesman of the AMWJU said the union appealed to KCP-MC to withdraw their ‘ban’ and allow the paper to bring out its issues.

He said frequent threats to media persons and media houses by different militants in Manipur severely affected journalists from working freely in the state.