In yet another repeat performance, journalists on Sunday defied militant diktat and celebrated the 65th Republic Day in Guwahati Press Club premises. A group of other citizens, including children, joined them.
Hoisting the National Flag, senior journalist Dayanath Singh called upon one and all to resist any threat to the dignity of the Tricolour, the colours of which is tinged with sacrifices of innumerable martyrs, both known and unknown. Singh, whose father was a freedom fighter, recalled the repression his family had been subjected to during the Quit India Movement when their house was demolished and they had to migrate to West Bengal from their home State Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier, senior journalist Rupam Barua described how a spark lit in the Press Club premises in 1998 by a section of journalists in the face of heightened militancy, spread like a praire fire and people began celebrations of Republic Day and Independence Day ignoring militant fatwas.
The journalists and the citizens then took out a procession raising patriotic slogans. Those who attended the programme included Hiten Mahanta, Ajit Patowary, Nava Thakuria, Ranen Kumar Goswami, Dr Jagadindra Raichoudhury, Promod Kalita, Girin Karji, Rajib Bhattacharya, Ravi Ajit Achraya, Purabi Barua, Pradip Thakuria, Kazi Nekib Ahmed and Kailash Sarma.
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