(RSF/IFEX) – On 20 March 2003, RSF called on police and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya to step up their investigation of a bomb attack near the premises of the Nepalese-language newspaper “Sunchari Samachar”, in Siliguri (in West Bengal state’s Darjeeling district). RSF said it feared local journalists would be tempted to censor themselves […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 20 March 2003, RSF called on police and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya to step up their investigation of a bomb attack near the premises of the Nepalese-language newspaper “Sunchari Samachar”, in Siliguri (in West Bengal state’s Darjeeling district).
RSF said it feared local journalists would be tempted to censor themselves when reporting on sensitive subjects since no clues have been found to determine who was behind the 4 March attack, in which a powerful bomb exploded in front of the newspaper’s offices without causing injury.
The “Times of India”‘s Siliguri correspondent said the blast may have been linked to “Sunchari Samachar”‘s coverage of the situation in the Darjeeling Gorkha Autonomous Hill Council region. “Sunchari Samachar”, which has a circulation of 25,000 copies, was banned from the region in 1998, but the paper’s editor said after the attack that he had good relations with officials in the region.
Siliguri is located near the borders of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Tibet.
