Attack on journalists at Virudhunagar Congress rally condemned

In a statement, Mohammed Shafeeq, state deputy general secretary, All Secretariat Journalists Association, said, “We strongly condemn the attack on journalists by Congress cadre in Virudhunagar. Police should take action against them based on the video that is being circulated on social media.”

The incident happened late on Saturday when a group of journalists, who were covering the election rally of Manickam Tagore, took photos of empty chairs in the meeting. A group of Congress supporters, who saw the journalists filming the empty chairs started attacking them. 

When fellow journalists, present at the spot, questioned the Congress supporters, more Congress workers pounced on the journalists.

“We were doing our work when the Congress cadre attacked us and a senior journalist was injured in the attack,” said journalists present there.

The incident created widespread furore across the state and journalists condemned the Congress for the attack. Shafeeq also said that attack on journalists in Virudhunagar is not an isolated incident. Similar incident happened in the PMK campaign recently when a Tamil paper reporter was attacked for not covering the campaign properly. 

He also demanded police protection for journalists involved in election coverage.