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MPs raise grave concern over journalist Shah's abduction

Lamakers raised serious concern about the abduction of journalist Jitendra Shah in the first meeting of the special session of the interim parliament that began this evening.

MPs of Nepali Congress (NC), CPN (UML), Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Rastriya Janamorcha Nepal took the Maoists and the Home Minister to task for not taking any step for Shah's release despite the reports of monitoring missions sent by media groups that local Maoist leaders were involved in the abduction.

NC lawmaker Umakanta Choudhary, UML's Raghuji Panta and Pradeep Gyawali, RPP chairman Pashupati Shumsher Rana and Rastriya Janamorcha's Dila Ram Acharya described the abduction as a serious threat to freedom of expression and demanded that Home Minister Krishna Sitaula immediately inform the parliament about the abduction episode.

Chief of CPN-Maoist’s parliamentary party Krishna Mahara said his party was ready to take action against party workers if found guilty of kidnapping Shah, the Bara district correspondent of Nepal F.M and Avenues Television. He also said that party chairman Prachanda had issued on Wednesday a strong direction to party cadres not to engage in such activities.

Responding to the comments of MPs, Home Minister Situala, who was present in the session, said the government had taken the abduction of a working journalist as an attack on democracy. Saying that police investigation was underway into the abduction, he promised to inform the House as soon as the investigation report came.

Just before the start of the special session, members of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) and Press Chautari Nepal staged sit-in at the main gate of Singha Durbar demanding that the House take up the abduction issue. They also requested the MPs to speak on the issue.

Shah, also a central member of Press Chautari Nepal, was abducted from Bara by a group on Sunday. nepanews.com mk Oct 11 07