The Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) has initiated legal action against the editor of a local newspaper for forcing his entry into the office of the Joint Director Information (JDI) Kashmir and manhandling the Joint Director Information and his staff.According to the employees of JDI Kashmir, the Editor came marching to their office this morning shouting that adequate advertisements were not being issued to his newspaper ‘Asian Mail’ by the Government. "He entered into our office and without any reason started hurling choicest abuses at all of us and tried to manhandle the Joint Director Information saying that adequate advertisements were not being released to his newspaper,” an employee of JDI Kashmir who was present at the time of incident said.
Following a strong protest by the employees of JDI Kashmir over their intimidation and harassment by the said Editor, the Department has lodged a written complaint with the police in this regard and has also informed the concerned authorities in the Government about the incident.Taking a serious note of the incident, Director Information & Public Relations, Mr Muneer-ul-Islam said that he will be personally raising the issue with the representatives of various Editors Forums in the State.Meanwhile, the JDI Kashmir has sought police protection for his office to prevent recurrence of such ugly incidents in future. The employees have complained that they are frequently being harassed by editors of some small-time newspapers for not releasing bulk advertisements to their publications.Pertinently, a payment of Rs 13.76 lakh has been made by DIPR to the ‘Asian Mail’ newspaper during the past fiscal on account of advertisement support from the Government, which is the highest in that category of newspapers.