Media seeks apology from Prisons boss

​Hyderabad: Tension prevailed at the press conference conducted by the Telangana State Prisons Director General office at SICA in Chanchalguda on Monday as journalists staged a protest against Prisons DG Vinoy Kumar Singh. The DG had made derogatory remarks against a new channel for running a story that he allegedly was smuggling teakwood to Patna and Bihar. The channel had claimed that he had transported crores worth teakwood from Chanchalguda jail via trains by his staff. Terming the allegations as baseless, the DG on Saturday issued an invitation to media persons for a press conference on Monday. The DG had allegedly said that the channel was behaving like a ‘commercial sex worker.’

When the DG came to attend the press conference on Monday, all the representatives of Electronic and Print media unanimously demanded an unconditional apology from the DG for his derogatory words against the news channel. He replied that he was committed to his earlier words and said that under the guise of a news channel they were blackmailing officials. With those words, the print and electronic media journalists in retaliation boycotted the press conference and shouted out slogans against the DG and staged a protest outside the SICA office. As the tension prevailed, the police deployed forces and the DG immediately left the premises.

Journalists decided to intensify their agitation against the DG and his derogatory statements against the news channel. They decided not to cover any programme of the Prisons till DG tenders an apology. Meanwhile, the officials showcased the teakwood which was seized at the railway station. They told the media that the teakwood which was shown on the television channel was personally purchased by SICA warder T Bhaskara Chary for his own purpose. They also showed a bill in the name of Chary with Rs 2,900 and said that he had purchased the teakwood from Bombay Beeding shop at Goshamahal.

Releasing a press note on Monday night, DG V K Singh criticised that after the Police and Forest Department have all cleared that transaction and process was legal, the channel without any basis took his name for cheap publicity. The DG said, “I apologise to all commercial sex workers that I equated their profession with the news channel and I agree that they are much more respectable than that news channel. I want to start a movement #raise voice to save the media. I doubt that the news channel reporters are in league with some gang of criminals or terrorists who want to take revenge upon me. I will write to the police for investigation in this angle.”