Hyderabad, Feb 7: The Indian Journalists Union and Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists strongly condemned the attack on the office of the Andhra Jyothi Daily at Renigunta, Tirupati on Saturday afternoon by the activists of the Youth Congress. In a statement issued here on Saturday, K Sreenivas Reddy, Secretary-General, Indian Journalists Union (IJU), D Somasundar, President and Y Narender Reddy, General Secretary of Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalist (APUWJ) said that about fifty of them attacked and broke glass panes of the office. This was not the first time such attack took place on the office of Andhra Jyothi. It was a direct attack on the constitutional right of free expression and freedom of the press, they said.

If the youth congress activists or anybody else was aggrieved by any report appearing in the paper, they should take recourse to legally acceptable means to redress their grievance. The attack on the Andhra Jyothi office exposed the intolerance of a section of the political class towards the press. It was not acceptable in a democratic society, they added.

The statement said “We urge upon the police to immediately take steps to bring the culprits to the book and mete out exemplary punishment. They should provide security to the offices of Andhra Jyothi offices across the state. We also urge upon top Government functionaries and the Congress Party to reign in the hot heads in their ranks and prevent such attacks on the democratic institutions like newspaper office”.

K Sreenivas Reddy, D Somasundar and Y Narender Reddy called upon the working journalists all over the state to raise their voice and protest against the attack on the newspaper office.