In an apparent display of its “extraterritorial ambitions”, the Mamata Banerjee Government on Thursday made the Central Government Office Complex housing CBI and ED offices out of bounds for the media, posting large posse of policemen at its gates, literally shoeing away scribes who would demand explanation for such prohibitive orders sans any circular.
When asked senior police officers stationed at the spot said they had orders from the higher authorities to debar the media from entering the CGO complex and talking to CBI and ED officials. The police would escort those who would to meet the central officials the media men were bluntly told by the senior cops.
“Who are you to demand explanationIJ I am not bound to explain things to you” was how an officer retorted when asked as to why the journalists were stopped from going inside.
The ED and CBI sleuths however said that they had only demanded police bandobast against rowdy elements that were regularly staging dharnas and agitations outside the CGO threatening the security of the officials and that they had never wanted any action against the media.
“How can the police interfere with the administrative affairs of the Central Government offices!” wondered an ED staff. Incidentally, an ED officer involved in the investigation of Saradha case had a few days ago been beaten up by a group of men at Hind Motors in Hooghly district. The officer later did not rule out connections between the assault and the “sensitive brief I am handling.”
The media had earlier revealed how arrested senior Minister Madan Mitra was gradually revealing the names of top Trinamool leaders who were involved in the Saradha scam.
The Thursday’s decision came within a fortnight of the State Government issuing a verbal circular at the State secretariat at Nabanna asking the journalists to remain confined inside the Press Corner and risk arrest if they would venture out of it.
Reacting sharply to the Thursday’s incident BJP State president Rahul Sinha said “such decisions are but natural for a State where the Chief Minister asks people to read newspapers and watch media channels of her own like.” The Government was in fact trying to do away with the media because it was exposing its corrupt ways he said condemning the incident.