Calcutta police clueless in scribe’s case

While various journalists’ organisations of Assam and other northeastern states expressed concern over the disappearance of Borbora, his family alleged that the management of The Asian Age had not bothered to even reply to a letter it had sent about a week after he disappeared.

“The newspaper authorities did not even bother to inform us that Ankur is missing. We got to know about it only through Rajiv Bora, another Assamese journalist who is with The Telegraph in Calcutta,” his elder brother Ambar Borbora said.

Ankur,32, who earlier served in The Sentinel and The Assam Tribune, both published from Guwahati, subsequently worked with Press Trust of India in Kohima and Gangtok before joining The Asian Age in May last year.

His elder brother said M J Akbar, Editor of The Asian Age, to whom he had sent a fax, requesting a hastening of the probe to find out the whereabouts of Ankur Borbora, had not even replied to the message.

“We are terribly upset with the management and the Editor of The Asian Age for the silence they are maintaining on the matter,” Ambar Borbora said. Incidentally, Ankur Borbora was supposed to get married in October.

Family sources revealed that though Ankur has been missing since January 12, the management of The Asian Age registered a case with the Calcutta police only four days later.

Meanwhile, the journalists’ community of Guwahati urged Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta to take up the matter with his West Bengal counterpart Jyoti Basu so that a speedy probe could be taken up.