पत्रकार उत्पीड़न संबंधी काटजू के पत्र का उमर अब्दुल्ला ने दिया जवाब

Dear justice Katju, I am in receipt of your letter, sent yesterday, regarding the recent incident involving members of the media & the J&K police. I understand the sentiment behind your letter but feel it necessary to place on record that the police have never had an intention of targeting media personnel. Journalists & camera men regularly cover public protests & it is a very rare occurrence that media people get caught up in the same way as this recent incident.

While it is regrettable that this incident took place I believe there are important lessons that can be learnt. It is easy for us, sitting far away from the scene of the action, to suggest that the police should look for cameras to ascertain whether a person is a press person or not but in the heat of the moment with stones & tear smoke shells flying it is often impossible for the police to take the time to make a proper assessment. In the chaos I dare say a bag of stones & a camera bag would probably look quite similar. Even with the best of intentions mistakes will happen & we have to take steps to reduce the possibility of such mistakes.

In order to avoid such situations arising again its not good enough to just write to states & put the onus on them. I believe that the responsibility rests on the states, the media but above all on the Press Council of India. Unlike a lot of other countries, including countries like the UK which protect the freedom of the press, there is a code of conduct for the media while covering such situations. We have no such code binding on journalists in this country.

Perhaps the time has come for the PCI to frame such a code in consultation with states & the media fraternity. As a starting point may I suggest that journalists who wish to plunge in to crowds to get the perfect photograph should wear brightly coloured jackets/bibs so that they can be identified easily by the law enforcing agencies. Unless you take the initiative to make it easier to identify journalists/camera persons in such situations I'm afraid we will always run the risk of such mistakes happening again.

I look forward to working with you as you take the initiative to frame a suitable code of conduct. I assure you on behalf of the forces operating in J&K that we will follow such a code in letter & spirit.

Best wishes

Omar Abdullah