Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of threatening media organisations in an attempt to stop the coverage of the Hathras tragedy.

“I have come to know that the BJP-government at the Centre has started threatening media organisations as they (those in the party) are trying to stop the coverage of the Hathras incident (in Uttar Pradesh). Media organisations are told not to go overboard with the story and even stop coverage,” said Mamata in her address at the end of a 2.5km march from Birla Planetarium to Gandhi statue on the Maidan.

It was clear from her message that she had tracked how ABP News reporter Pratima Mishra and cameraman Manoj Adhikari were shoved and pushed by the police and prevented from visiting the Hathras gang-rape-and-murder victim’s home on Friday.

“I had sent a delegation to meet the members of the victim’s family, but they were stopped 1km from the village… Journalists were also stopped and they had sat on a dharna,” she said, accusing the BJP-led Centre and the Uttar Pradesh administration of a cover-up attempt.

“This is a super autocracy, this is not democracy… This is not government of the people, for the people, by the people. This is a government of dictatorship,” she said.

The UP administration’s role in Uttar Pradesh in trying to prevent journalists from reporting the Hathras incident has come under scanner. Through her 30-minute address, Mamata repeatedly tried to argue that this policing of the media had become the new normal. She also said that journalists were being killed for asking the right questions. “Has anyone got justice?” she asked.

Opposition parties have criticised Mamata’s aversion to criticism. But the Bengal chief minister said that she was all for free media. “Journalists can go around freely here in Bengal… No one stops them,” Mamata said. “I know that BJP ministers call up television channels and instruct them on which news is to be carried.”