The RTI activist Akhil Gogoi presented “audio-visual evidence” here on Saturday to claim that a television journalist “masterminded” the molestation of a girl on camera on Monday night even as Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi gave the police 48 hours to arrest all those involved.
Raids were being conducted at suspected hideouts of the 12 men, including Amarjyoti Kalita, both in Assam and in neighbouring states, the police said. So far, four persons have been arrested while 12 others have been identified.
Accusing the editor-in-chief of a national news channel, two editors and proprietor of a local news channel of hiding the reality despite having raw footage of the incident, Mr Gogoi told reporters, “The video footage which I am going to play here was shot by a local TV channel owned by the wife of a Congress minister.”
Naming some TV journalists, Mr Gogoi played a video interview by a local news channel where the victim, pointing a finger at the interviewing journalist, says, “I was returning home after attending a birthday party. You stopped me and then did all this to me.”
Mr Gogoi, who played select video frames where the TV journalist seems to direct in Assamese, “Nengta kori de... nengta kor... (Strip her... strip her... she is a prostitute...)”
Before this, Mr Gogoi also played recorded audioclips of the journalist asking his office to send a camera crew near the income-tax office on G.S. Road. “Send the camera fast... we have confined the girl,” he is heard saying.