Mokokchung, February 23 (MExN): The Mokokchung Press Club (MPC) has expressed dismay over the “odd incident” wherein press and media personnel were frisked by a group of women on their way to report on an election related event in Mongsenyimti village on February 22.
MPC in a press release stated that the ‘press personnel as professionals reasoned with the women and produced their ECI Media Identity Cards issued by the Chief Electoral Officer, Nagaland for free movement of media personnel, which the women did not honour. They also produced their respective media organizational ID cards but the women were unreasonable.’
Besides, the vehicles on which they were travelling had the ‘PRESS’ and ‘On Election Duty’ sticker issued by the Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer, Mokokchung prominently displayed but they were forced to step out of their vehicles. The women then conducted “unauthorised body frisking of the media personnel and searched the vehicles,” it stated.
Condemning the “illicit body frisking and unlawful vehicle searching” perpetrated on the press and media personnel as it is tantamount to impeding the Constitutional Right and freedom of the press, MPC said, ‘perpetrators of such illegitimate acts are liable for legal prosecution.’
Meanwhile, the MPC has requested the DC & DEO, Mokokchung “to rein in such unscrupulous elements so as to ensure that freedom of the press in Mokokchung is not subdued.”
