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Journalism of Courage
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GUWAHATI, Oct 26: The Assam police has claimed it has foiled an attempt by the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to kill eminent journalist and editor of the city-based The Sentinel newspaper, D N Bezboruah.
An official press note issued by the Assam police here last night said that the police had picked up two youths while they were loitering outside the residence of Bezboruah on September 30, and subsequently recovered from them a sketch map of the residence of the editor as also other landmark in the vicinity of the house.
The two youths, said to be ULFA activists, are Hitesh Baruah and Pulak Baruah, both originally hailing from Nalbari, a district which currently has the highest number of members in the outfit. They have since been forwarded to judicial custody, the press note said.
Bezboruah, also former president of the Editors’ Guild of India and a recipient of the prestigious B D Goenka award for excellence in journalism, on his part claimed that he has been receivingthreats from the outfit for more than a decade now for writing against it.
“But I will continue to write against them when the need arises,” Bezboruah, who has been the most critical of editors against the militant group said here today.
News of the ULFA plot to kill Bezboruah has created a sensation here with the journalistic community expressing concern over the alleged attempt. But the Assam police too has come under fire from a section of the media for coming out with the information after more than four weeks of the arrest.
The police press note incidentally has come only as a reaction to an ULFA denial of a news item in a section of the local media that the outfit had prepared a hit-list of four senior journalists including two editors.
The ULFA had on Saturday denied reports that it was planning to kill some journalists including two editors, with publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary saying that though a section of journalists were “siding with the government, it helps us as we get informedabout the government’s moves in advance through their writings”.
