Hindustan Times journalists who were on the field covering the Delhi violence were surrounded by mobs and were chased by two bikers as clashes between the supporters and the opponents of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) turned violent in Northeast Delhi on Monday.
Several journalists who were covering the incident have sustained injuries on the field. Some even were threatened by mobs of arson, gunfire and stone-pelting.
HT journalists Soumya Pillai and Fareeha Iftikhar were on the field when they were surrounded by the mobs.
Pillai said that their car was surrounded by the mob and when they managed to break free, two bikers from the mob chased them.
Hindustan Times reported that the reporters were accosted and attacked and they even asked them to show proof of the religion. The journalists at the site were asked to refrain themselves from using their cellphones or notebooks as the mobs attacked several journalists.
Similarly, HT Correspondent Anvit Srivastava was also stopped by the mobs near Karawal Nagar and he was threatened that he'd be thrashed if he did not show his religious identity proof. Srivastava told the mobs that he could show his identity card but the mobs remained adamant and asked him to show his religious thread or tilak to prove he is a Hindu. He said that they were armed with rods and sticks and they let him go checking his identity card.
Well, journalists reporting on the field being heckled and attacked is not new to us as several incidents of journalists being threatened has come to light in recent times.
On Monday, Akash Napa, a TV journalist from 24x7 was shot while he was covering the violence at Maujpur. The mobs shot him on his left shoulder, Akash's colleagues confirmed. He was then rushed to the hospital for medical aid.
Earlier, two NDTV journalists,on Monday, were thrashed by an angry mob in Delhi amid violent clashes between the protesters.
Journalist and NDTV's executive editor, Nidhi Razdan, had tweeted that the thrashing was stopped only when they realised that the journalists were "our people- Hindus".
The journalists who were attacked were Saurabh Shukla and Arvind Gunasekar from NDTV.
Similarly, a TOI photojournalist also met with a similar fate. While he covered the incident with a camera, a Hindu Sena member approached him and asked him to put the saffron tikka on his forehead. After refusing to do so, the member said: "you are a Hindu so what is the problem?"
The mob even followed him and threatened him and asked: "are you a Hindu or a Muslim?"
Following the attacks on journalists, Editors Guild of India condemned the act and said "We express serious concern over the manner in which journalists have been assigned to cover the violence in Delhi have been targeted for a physical attack. The Guild notes that journalists being attacked is tantamount to a direct assault on press freedom and those guilty must be brought to book."
