The Uttar Pradesh [ Images ] police lathi-charged media-persons seeking to question jailed mafia don Babloo Srivastava, while he was brought to a local court for appearance.

With nearly three dozen criminal cases pending against him in different courts , Babloo was nabbed by Interpol in Singapore, 12 years ago and has since been facing trial.

Since bulk of the cases were pending before courts in Lucknow [ Images ], he is often brought there for the hearings , which invariably attract much media attention.

While scribes were never prevented from covering the criminal in the past , the sudden action of the local police to physically prevent them from doing so came as a shock to all.

Protesting journalists boycotted the budget briefing by Finance Minister Lalji Verma , even as cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh tendered an "unconditional apology" on behalf of the government. Principal secretary (Information) Vijai Shanker Pandey also tried to pacify the scribes.

The media-persons also protested the use of unparliamentary language by Lucknow superintendent of police (East), Paresh Pandey.

The situation was aggravated by an unrelated incident in which a reporter of a TV channel was manhandled and slapped by a police sub-inspector while he was trying to interview youngsters at the Lucknow University for Valentine's Day .

Angry scribes held a meeting at the state media centre where a unanimous demand was raised for immediate suspension of the two cops .

After prolonged dialogue, the government agreed to institute a magisterial inquiry into the incident, but expressed reluctance to initiate any further action against them.

Meanwhile, defending the police, a senior government official pleaded, "The SP was right in preventing journalists from interviewing a jailed criminal in police custody, if he had failed to so he would have faced action." He however hastened to add, "but that does not mean that I am justifying the use of force against the scribes.