Guwahati (India), 08th September 2020 : Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) expressed profound grief over the demise of senior journalist Ashim Dutta, who succumbed to COVID-19 aggravated ailments on 7 September 2020 at Silchar medical college hospital.
JFA secretary, NJ Thakuria told in a press release that Dutta (65), who worked for a Bengali daily in Barak valley, was suffering from kidney problems and went for dialysis regularly. He was admitted to the hospital on Saturday after testing positive for novel coronavirus infections. His health condition deteriorated the next day and died in the early hours on Monday. A pass-out from Gauhati University, Dutta left behind his wife, only daughter and other relatives with well-wishers. Assam lost its first scribe to Covid-19 complications only Sunday as Udalguri based correspondent Dhaneswar Rabha (35) died in Guwahati medical college hospital.
Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) declared that Rabha becomes the first journo-victim to Covid-19 pandemic in northeast India.
He was also diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and put on regular dialysis. Lately tested positive for the virus infection, Rabha left behind his parents, wife, two kids, a host of relatives.
Lately, the corona casualties among the media fraternity across the country started kicking as it is frequently losing media persons toCovid-19 instigated ailments.
Days back, Mumbai based senior film-journalist Shyam Sarma, Nellore (Andhra Pradesh) based scribe Narayanam Seshacharyulu, Pune based television reporter Pandurang Raikar succumbed to the infections. The list also includes television journalist Neelanshu Shukla from Kanpur, photojournalist Jai Deep from Patiala, television reporter Madhusudan Reddy & video journalist M Parthasarathy from Tirupati, television reporter Ramanathan & news videographer E Velmurugan from Chennai, news presenter Davinder Pal Singh from Chandigarh, television scribe Manoj Kumar from Hyderabad, print-journalist Pankaj Kulashrestha from Agra, Orissa’s journalists Simanchal Panda, K ChRatnam & Priyadarshi Patnaik, etc. Kolkata based photojournalist Ronny Roy became the first India scribe to lose his battle against the dreaded virus. New Delhi scribe Tarun Sisodia killed himself undergoing Covid-19 treatment at AIIMS.
Maharashtra’s veteran journalist Ashok Churi, who edited Marathi weekly Palghar Times, died at a Palghar based hospital, who later tested positive for Covid-19. The printer-publisher of AsomiyaKhabar (Rantu Das) also died at a Guwahati hospital and later tested positive for the virus infection. As the casualties among the media fraternity because of Covid-19 complications start growing, JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria expressed anguish that even though hundreds of scribes across the State got infected, the worrisome development is not reported properly by the concerned media outlets except few infected scribes made personal revelations in the social media.
