The Shillong Press Club has written to the Ri-Bhoi Deputy Commissioner urging for an investigation into an organisation that has maligned the image of the SPC and its president, David Laitphlang.
A news clip broadcast by News Nest, an Assam-based channel, recently showed a member of a purported group called the Meghalaya Peoples Social Organisation (MPSO) claim that the SPC president had suppressed a piece of news into factories allegedly polluting a water body in Ri-Bhoi.
According to the person from the MPSO interviewed for the news piece, Laitphlang had ordered Ri-Bhoi News to remove the story it had done on the pollution issue.
“SPC believes in the process of natural justice and will continue to maintain the highest benchmarks of ethical and professional journalism, while constantly campaigning for utmost freedom of expression for all as assured by the Constitution,” a release said today. “Taking serious note of the baseless lies by the unregistered civil society group MPSO against the SPC and its president, it is hereby announced that henceforth MPSO is blacklisted by SPC for all purposes.”
The MPSO claimed that it was acting on a complaint by an educational institution that a factory was polluting the neighborhood in Byrnihat area and hence had gone to inspect it. It claimed that despite the inspection being broadcasted via Ri-Bhoi News, it was lifted off the internet shortly after. The president of the MPSO, Vincent Sohkhwai, claimed in the interview that the story was lifted under instructions of the SPC through its president.
