Hyderabad: Angered over acerbic tongue-lashing by VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) leaders, reporters on December 5 walked out of a press conference by VHP international working president Ashok Singhal, who launched a tirade against certain English newspapers for 'partisan coverage' and even went to the extent of dubbing them as 'traitors'.

As shocked scribes looked on, Singhal spewed venom at the media and made derogatory remarks against three leading English dailies, saying they were doing great disservice to the country and Hindu Dharma.

What started off as an innocuous briefing on VHP's philanthropic activities soon turned into a no-holds-barred media bashing with Singhal, using choicest epithets, lashing out at English newspapers for projecting VHP as a fundamentalist organisation while remaining silent about the plight of Hindus in Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.

Making three English national dailies the targets of his vitriolic attack, he said they were 'mere propaganda sheets and commercial papers showing utter disregard for the sentiments of Hindus'.

Warning of a 'public revolt and a big uprising' against 'biased coverage' in the English press, Singhal said the day was not far off when people would stop reading such newspapers.

Taking a cue from his leader, Andhra Pradesh VHP president G Pulla Reddy went to the extent of calling out a reporter from a local Telugu daily and abusing him for 'shabby treatment of stories relating to the interests of Hindus in the daily'.

Reddy's remark came as a last straw for the enraged scribes who got up and entered into a heated argument with VHP leaders, protesting against their derogatory language.

PTI