Three journalists working with 'The Caravan' were allegedly attacked, subjected to communal slurs, threatened with murder, and sexually harassed by a mob led by a 'BJP General Secretary' on Tuesday afternoon when they were reporting on a story regarding a Delhi violence complainant in Subhash Mohalla.
Condemning the same, Editors Guild of India issued a statement which cited two attacks on journalists in Delhi and Bengaluru. The statement added that both attacks were reprehensible and demanded police action immediately.
According to the Caravan report, the journalists - Shahid Tantray, Prabhjit Singh and a woman reporter (identity concealed) - were taking photographs of saffron flags that had been tied in the area, when some men approached them and told them to stop. Among them, was a man wearing a saffron kurta and had a bandage on his arm. He identified himself as a "BJP general secretary" and asked Tantray for his identity card.
Upon realising that Tantray was a Muslim, the mob launched an attack. Meanwhile, the woman journalist also faced sexual harassment, the report said.
"As the attack was ongoing, the woman journalist pleaded with the attackers to let her colleagues go, a man with a crew-cut hairstyle, who had rakhis tied around his wrist, pulled at her clothing to try and drag her inside. The woman journalist ran from the lane to a neighbouring one. As she sat on a slab to compose herself, young men surrounded her. The men, who looked to be in their early twenties, began taking photos and videos of her, and “making cheap and lewd comments and started saying ‘Dikhao, dikhao’”— “Show, show,” the report added.
Meanwhile, two policemen arrived at the spot and took them journalists the nearby Bhajanpura station. In the complaint, Prabhjit Singh said that had he not been there, "the mob led by that saffron kurta clad man would have lynched Shahid for his Muslim identity.”
An FIR hasn't been filed yet as the locals who allegedly assaulted the journalists have also filed a complaint. A Bhajanpura station-house officer said that they would need to examine complaints from both sides before registering an FIR.
