The Tamil Nadu assembly on Friday ordered the arrest of six senior journalists, including two top editors of the 125-year-old The Hindu daily on charges of breach of privilege and gross contempt of the House and awarded them 15 days simple imprisonment.
Speaker K Kalimuthu issued arrest warrants against editor N Ravi, executive editor Malini Parthasarthy, publisher S Rangarajan, chief of bureau V Jayant and special correspondent Radha Venkatesan.
The order was issued in connection with an editorial based on an article written by Jayant and Venkatesan.
Amidst protest from the entire opposition, Kalimuthu also ordered the arrest of S Selvam, editor of DMK party daily Murasoli, for publishing the translated version of the impugned editorial.
He also suspended the assembly passes of all reporters belonging to the two dailies for 15 days.
Executive editor of The Hindu N Ram hit out at the assembly's action describing it as 'outrageous' and said the paper would fight it out in the court.
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