The incident has raised questions over the scope of free journalism and safety of journalists
Ghazanfar Abbas, IndiaTomorrow.net
New Delhi, June 5: It was a bizarre situation for a Delhi based journalist when he was detained and humiliated by the Rajasthan Police as he revealed his religious identity which he kept hide till he was covering a sensitive story in order to save his life.
On Saturday, 3rd June, three journalists from New Delhi went to Hanumangarh district for doing a story on the alleged arms training camps conducted by the saffron outfit Bajrang Dal (BD) in Hanumangarh and other parts of Rajasthan. But, they were suddenly detained by the Rajasthan Police who kept them for hours together without any explanation and subjected them to humiliation and verbal intimidation after revelation of one of them as Muslim.
All three journalists belonged to prestigious media organizations. Asad Ashraf works for The Statesman while Anupam Pandey is from Outlook and Vijay Pandey is in Tehelka.
Speaking to IndiaTomorrow.net, Asad said: “I decided not to reveal my Muslim name in Hanumangarh while interviewing the BD members as I feared being singled out by Bajrang Dal (BD) activists and Gau Rakshaks (Cow Vigilantes). The lynching of Pehlu Khan and Mohammed Akhlaq haunted me and I did not want to take any chances. No intelligent person would reveal his identity in such a scenario especially when he is a Muslim. Though I hid my real identity from BD members, I did not hide my identity to the police.”
“In fact the leader of Bajrang Dal did not talk to me awkwardly. Even after knowing that I am a Muslim, he did not humiliate me. But the police did. This situation only arose only because of my presence as a Muslim journalist. The police were skeptical to talk to me. Shows how dangerous it has become for a Muslim journalist to cover such a story. Had I been a less connected journalist, I could very well have been beaten up” Ashraf averred.
Outlook journalist Anupam Pandey who accompanied Asad told IndiaTomorrow.net that they decided to do a story on the Bajrang Dal activities and arms training camps only after talking to Ashish, District President (Zila Mantri) of Bajrang Dal and VHP member.
Describing the incident, Anupam told: “BD members gave their testimonies about training camps on camera at Hotel City Heart where we had taken up lodging. Ashish also arranged visits to nearby gaushala and showed us the activities of gaurakshaks. Somehow, Ashish realized that Asad is a Muslim and he called a local TV journalist Baldeep to confirm this. As we were about to leave the hotel, Brijesh and Ashish called up the police. Despite showing our identity cards to the police, we were asked to go to the Police station.”
According to Anupam, Sub Inspector Shambhudayal told Asad, “jootey se marunga agar aaj suspend bhi ho gaya (I will beat you up with my shoes even if I have to get suspended today).
“Since we were updating all our experiences live on social media and had called many activists, journalists and local politicians, some senior police officials intervened and only then we were released by the police. Despite knowing that we are all well connected journalists, the police did not bother to apologize for their misbehavior and detained us for over four hours,” he further told.
The incident has raised questions over the scope of free journalism and safety of journalists.
“How the journalists would be able to work if authorities would themselves create fear like this,”Anupam questioned.
“I seriously doubt if the police would have prevented the BD activists from thrashing us if they had decided to do so. Had the senior police officers not intervened in our favor we would have been definitely locked up and beaten up badly inside the police station,” he said.
When these journalists asked police that did they know about the arms training camps conducted by BD, Police said they did not know anything about it.
Meanwhile some journalists’ groups including Free Press and other journalists have condemned the biased approach of the police.
