President's photo row lands Goa scribes in trouble
Three photojournalists were summoned by the police for questioning as they were charged with taking photographs of President Pratibha Patil on a Goa beach during her visit.
PRESIDENT OF India, Pratibha Patil left Goa for Pune on January 6 after completing her 4 day (January 3 to 6) visit. Three photojournalists were summoned by the police for questioning as they were charged with taking photographs of President Pratibha Patil on a Goa beach during her visit. The photojournalists association, however, called it a direct assault on the media freedom. The photographs which were taken on Tuesday afternoon were published in the local newspaper on Wednesday. In the photograph, the President was seen wearing a colourful sari as she sat on a beach bed at Benaulim beach. The photograph also showed a white couple wearing swim wear walking past the President which irked the authorities.
Around Wednesday noon, the three photo journalists namely Ganadeep Sheldekar, Soiru Komarpant and Arvind Tengse, a freelance photojournalist - were summoned by the Margao police. Ganadeep Sheldekar and Soiru Komarpant reportedly work in local English dailies. Soon after being apprehended, the police recorded their respective statements and sought reasons behind why the act was conducted despite having defined security borders.
“As instructed by the security forces we were 200 meters away form the president, we took the photographs with a 400 mm zoom lens. We did not transgress any security barriers, however it is sad to see the unknowns (tourists in bikinis) were allowed near president. We exposed this security lapse through photographs and Goa police instead of introspection blamed photojournalist”, Arvind Tengse added.
“We have not clicked the photographs to give it to someone else, we wanted to print the country’s top women in our daily, and we feel proud of that, but the police harassed us. We condemned this harassment of journalists on duty”, Soiru Komarpant said.
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