NEW YORK (TIP): Dr. Prakash M Swamy PhD (USA) has been a senior journalist for the past 40 years having worked in senior editorial positions at The Hindu, India Today, Press Trust of India, Ananda Vikatan, India Abroad USA to name a few. He used to continuously write for Asian Tribune too Prakash M Swamy.

He is an accredited diplomatic correspondent to the United Nations for the past 10 years and serve as a senior journalist in Chennai and New York. He has a penchant for investigative reporting and studied as a special subject as part of his journalism degree in University of Florida. He worked closely with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein the architects of investigative reporting in the US.

Returning to India, he broke the news of first human belt bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for The Hindu with forensic and scientific evidence that became global scoop of the decade, He was also mentioned as a fearless journalist by The New York Times and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York.

As part of his assignment, he is working on leads to probe into the death of a non-resident Indian -Mr Sainath, a top executive of a multinational Pacific Basin in Hong Kong. In the process he is gathering relevant information from the deceased’s parents, wife Gayathri Sai, his colleagues and friends.

It appears that Mrs. Gayathri Sai, 45, of Chennai, a movie group dancer and a former model, did not seem to appreciate Swamy following the leads and had directly and indirectly prevented him from pursuing the story.

When everything failed, she has gone to the social media to accuse Swamy, 63, of alleged sexual misconduct and flooding the social media with abusive contents such as video and audio recordings – all cooked up – with a view to preventing Swamy from pursuing his investigative story which she feared may implicate her.

Dr. Swamy has asked for evidence and solid proof from Mrs. Gayathri Sai like CCTV footage, building security register and verifiable independent proof of his misconduct. Without providing any of these and continue to level serious charges to damage his reputation and character on the social media without providing any credible evidence is a dangerous trend.

In the absence of any evidence, we are forced to conclude that these charges are motivated and an attempt to silence the senior journalist from discharging his official duty. Such assault on the freedom of the press can’t and won’t be tolerated. Dr Swamy says the criminal gang had asked for ransom money to keep quiet and no police action was taken despite complaint to Cyber Crime in June this year.

In the past, adversaries of the media used to send auto rickshaw with weapon slashing goons, throw acids on the face and now opponents take the easy way of digital terrorism to silence the media voice. We urge the Central and State Governments to ensure that the media persona is safeguarded against any kind of attacks that could be construed as brazen attack to silence the media.

(Source: Asian Tribune)