Condemning the incident, the Dainik Jagran on Tuesday said that disciplinary action would be taken against its Defence correspondent, Jarnail Singh, for throwing a shoe at Union Home Minister P Chidambaram. Sources at the office added that Singh was not deputed to cover the Congress press conference.

“He has been our Defence reporter for years now. He was not deputed to cover the Congress press conference today. In fact at the Congress press conference today, we already had two reporters on duty. Singh went to Chidambaram’s press conference out of his own interest,” said a senior journalist in his office.

Describing Singh as “soft-spoken, decent”, he added he was a “first class Defence journalist”. Singh’s last report published in Dainik Jagran, on April 3, was based on a RTI application that revealed details of expenditure incurred by different constituencies in the Lok Sabha elections as per the 2004 figures.

Meanwhile, Neelam Kapoor, the Public Information Officer, said they would have to “take a look at his accreditation after this incident”, adding, “PIB accreditation is dependent on the security clearance given by the police and if that clearance is withdrawn, accreditation can also be withdrawn.”