“A middle-aged man exposed his genitals to me, shook his penis and made lewd facial expressions at me,” read the complaint of a woman journalist who was cornered by a mob and attacked with her colleagues in Northeast Delhi on Tuesday, 11 August.
Three Journalists from media outlet - The Caravan - Shahid Tantray, Prabhjit Singh and another female journalist, who wished to remain anonymous, were in Northeast Delhi’s Bhajanpura area, one of the worst-hit areas during the riots, to report on a story related to the violence when they were allegedly surrounded by a mob and physically assaulted.
The woman journalist also alleged that young men surrounded her and took her pictures and videos without her consent, and verbally harassed her.
Tantray, who works as a photojournalist with the news outlet, told The Quint:
“We had gone to the area to report on a story related to the Delhi riots. We were taking some photographs of the area when a saffron-clad man approached us and asked us to stop clicking photos and hand over the memory card. He identified himself as the secretary of the local BJP unit.”
“He kept forcing us but when we refused to hand over our cameras, he made some calls and soon a huge mob surrounded us and started accosting us. The mob even physically assaulted me and my colleague,”added Tantray.
‘Threatened to Kill When They Realised I am Muslim’
Tantray also said when the man saw his name on the press card, he associated ‘Shahid’ to a Muslim name and started using communal slurs against him and even threatened to kill him.
The three journalists, with the help of some policemen, finally managed to reach the nearby Bhajanpura police station.
Bhajanpura SHO Ashok Sharma confirmed that “some incident like that has happened in Bhajanpura”. He said a complaint has been registered at the Bhajanpura police station.
During the riots in February, reports of several journalists being attacked for covering the communal tension had surfaced. A correspondent for JK 24×7 News, was shot at in east Delhi’s Maujpur while journalists and camerapersons of NDTV were assaulted by “armed mobs.”
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