A senior journalist in Arunachal Pradesh, who was shot at by a gunman outside her office in the capital Itanagar almost nine years ago, has found out that the material evidence and case records are “untraceable”.
It took a long time for Tongam Rina, the associate editor of The Arunachal Times, to recover from a bullet, fired point blank, that damaged her spine. The murder attempt on July 15, 2012, was made two months after her office was vandalised following reports in the daily on the PDS scam and shady hydro-power deals.
She has been fighting two cases since — one of the attack on the newspaper’s office at the court of the Judicial Magistrate First Class and the other related to the murder attempt at the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate. The two courts are in the same complex and share the storage for all documents.
Appearing for a hearing in the office attack case on March 2, Ms. Tongam discovered that the CCTV footage of the attack and damaged computers kept at the local police station’s storeroom had gone missing. “The police said the evidence had been submitted to the court. The court said it had no records. It is time the judiciary, the police and the State government came up with answers — answers I have been denied for so long,” she said.
The case record related to the bid on her too has been stuck in the court.
Director-General of Police Rajendra Pal Upadhyaya said an inquiry had been instituted into the alleged loss of evidence. “The inquiry will be conducted by Mari Riba, the Deputy Inspector-General (Intelligence),” he told The Hindu.