MADRAS, Nov 8: Indian leaders across the spectrum on Saturday condemned a state government for giving six journalists 15-day jail terms and sending police to the office of a top daily paper over critical news coverage.

The assembly in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Friday ordered the jail terms against journalists of The Hindu after the newspaper said the provincial government showed “rising intolerance” towards political opponents.

After the assembly vote, more than 20 police entered The Hindu’s headquarters in the state capital Madras, but an editor told them he would not let them search without a warrant, newspaper staff members said.

Police returned with a warrant and looked into the offices of top editors, but did not carry out any arrests.

The assembly ordered 15 days in jail for The Hindu’s publisher S. Rangarajan, editor N. Ravi, executive editor Malini Parthasarathy, associate editor and Tamil Nadu bureau chief V. Jayanth and special correspondent Radha Venkatesan.

It gave the same sentence to S. Selvam, editor of the Tamil-language daily Murasoli which is close to the province’s main opposition party, for publishing a translation of an editorial in The Hindu.

It said the six were guilty of “breach of privilege” for articles and an editorial about Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram’s government.

The Hindu had written that the government made “crude use of state power” by arresting a leading political opponent and allegedly harassing independent media.

In a rare agreement, India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition Congress party both said the Tamil Nadu authorities acted improperly.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said he was “pained” by the assembly’s moves, which BJP president Venkaiah Naidu said “can weaken democracy and therefore need to be withdrawn.”

“We as responsible persons in public life and representatives of the people are expected to be liberal about criticism,” Naidu told reporters in New Delhi.

India’s main communist party termed the assembly action a “gross misuse of legislative privilege.”

Media groups across India expressed outrage at the sentence, with a journalists union in Tamil Nadu planning a one-day protest fast on Sunday.

The Hindu’s editor-in-chief N. Ram told reporters the newspaper would seek a court stay on the jail sentences.

In a front-page editorial, the newspaper denounced the legislature’s use of privilege law “as a crude instrument to threaten the independent media and trample on the fundamental right of free expression, which includes fair comment and criticism.”

Indian journalists work in relative freedom, particularly compared with other developing countries, but in recent years a number of reporters and news organisations have incurred the wrath of authorities.

The news website Tehelka.com, whose March 2001 expose of corruption in military deals brought down the ruling party president and the defence minister, was shut down after intense legal probes into its finances.

Senior leaders repeatedly denounced several newspapers and television channels for criticising the Hindu nationalist government’s handling of Hindu-Muslim riots last year in the western state of Gujarat.—AFP