The Editors Guild of India on Saturday strongly condemned the acts of intimidation meted out to Siddharth Varadarajan, Editor of The Wire, by student members of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Allahabad University.
“For a senior journalist to be threatened in such a manner at a leading university is deplorable,” the Guild said in a statement here.
Public lecture
Varadarajan was scheduled to deliver a public lecture at the Allahabad University’s Senate Hall on January 20 at the invitation of the Students’ Union president.
However, the venue had to be shifted outside the varsity campus after ABVP activists threatened violence.
After the lecture, when Varadarajan went to meet the vice chancellor, ABVP activists surrounded the exit, forcing the police to intervene and escort him to safety.
“It is a brazen attack on freedom of expression, and the Editors Guild of India finds this mob mentality to silence those with divergent views unacceptable,” the statement said.
Published 23 January 2016, 20:27 IST