Uttar Pradesh: ‘Ballia police nabbed scribes to hide failure’

LUCKNOW/VARANASI: Members of Working Journalists of India held a demonstration at GPO Park in Hazratganj here on Thursday in protest against the arrest of three journalists in Ballia over their alleged role in the leak of the English paper of Class 12 board last week.
Police arrested the three journalists -- Ajit Ojha, Digvijay Singh, and Manoj Gupta -- claiming that they recovered copies of the leaked paper on their mobile phones.Police have already arrested 46 people over the leaked English paper.
However, journalists said the three journalists had recovered the leaked paper through their sources and had forwarded the copies to the police and administration officers to alert them about the paper leak.
The demonstrators alleged that the Ballia administration and education department arrested the journalists to hide their failure.
They also demanded that the cases registered against the journalists in Ballia be withdrawn and strict action taken against the guilty officers and those involved in the leak.
In Varanasi, too, local journalists condemned the arrest of the three journalists by Ballia police and demanded their immediate release.
The Kashi Patrakar Sangh wrote a letter to CM Yogi Adityanath demanding a fair probe into the matter. A delegation of journalists led by Subhash Singh, president of Kashi Patrakar Sangh, met Ram Kumar, ADG (Varanasi zone), on Tuesday and submitted a memorandum in this regard.
The ADG (Varanasi zone) said the matter is being investigated.
Journalists in Ballia also staged a protest under the banner of Joint Journalist Sangharsh Samiti at the district headquarters and demanded a high-level inquiry into the whole affair and punishment of the guilty.