The attention of Hub News, a sister concern of Northeast Media Hub, has been drawn to the comments made by President of Meghalaya Unit of Bharatiya Janata Party, Ernest Mawrie, regarding the coverage of the police raid on the private farm house of BJP MDC from Tura, Bernard N Marak alias Rimpu, at Tura, where an alleged sex racket was being run, from which five minors were rescued and huge cache of liquor and contraceptives was recovered and, later, weapons and explosives.

We strongly object to the statement given by the BJP Meghalaya President.
We wish to categorically state that it was a police search, which the MDC himself had put up on a social media saying that a raid is going on. Following which our team covered the search.

If any other media wanted to cover they should have. They reported the statement by the MDC but failed to cover the actual raid, the reason for which is best known to the respective media houses.

As for the presence of correspondents of media houses in Garo Hills, Shillong Times has a reporter in Tura, but the person is based in Dudhnoi and failed to cover the raid. No other leading media houses have reporters in Tura.

So, the allegations levied by the BJP Meghalaya President are baseless and an attempt to cover up the nefarious activities of its party member, that too its state Vice President. He seems to want to give a political twist to the media coverage and divert the attention of the people from the heinous activities of a prominent leader of his party.

We have reported what the police were doing and only dispensed our duty as an active media unit that wants to highlight important issues concerning the people of the State. We believe we are well within our rights as a prominent media house to cover such stories without any fear, bias or assumed affiliation.

We further strongly believe that such statements by a prominent leader of a national party are unbecoming on his part and a deliberate attempt to subvert media’s freedom in carrying out our duties.

Hub News Team