Ravi Choudhary, a photojournalist working for the Press Trust of India (PTI), on Monday alleged that he was attacked by several unidentified men in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad. The men who assaulted him were travelling in a vehicle that had 'Bharat Sarkar' (Government of India) written on it, Choudhary said.
The incident, according to Choudhary, occurred on Ganga Canal Road. Moreover, the journalist said that when he went to the Muradnagar Police Station to lodge a complaint regarding the same, but the cops there refused to file an FIR.
"What to do?" he asked on Twitter, tagging the official handles of UP Police, chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, and IPS officer Ashok Kumar.
Notably, Ravi Choudhary gained recent nationwide acclaim for clicking the iconic 'Jawan vs Kisan' picture that was widely shared across social media.
As hundreds of farmers made their way to Delhi, braving tear gas shells, water cannons and lathis -- the photograph, showing the upsetting confrontation between a 'Kisan' (farmer) and a 'Jawan' (armed personnel) -- hit several sore spots on the political spectrum.
The photograph seemed to point out that the central government's promised slogan -- "Jai Jawaan Jai Kisaan" ("English: Hail the Soldier, Hail the Farmer") -- was failing in light of the recent farmers' agitations, and the confontration was mortifying to watch.
Choudhary himself had said that capturing the moment was very difficult for him.
In addition to this, Ravi Choudhary's famed series of photographs -- involving Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi's confrontation with the UP Police over the rape of a Dalit girl in Hathras -- also went viral. A photo in particular, in which the cops had grabbed the Congress leader's kurta, had created a massive outrage on social media.
Choudhry was the one who had clicked the photo of 2018 farmers' protest which also had gone viral on social media. The photo had captured an elderly dhoti-clad man taking on eight policemen with his lathi (stick).
It would not be too much of a stretch to say that Choudhary's politically-charged photography, like all good photojournalism should be, had the potential to rub some people in power the wrong way.
Several netizens on his tweet asked Choudhary to file a complaint with the DGP and other high-ranking police officers over the reported incident and to even pursue judicial means if need be. Whether the photojournalist receives rightful justice for the alleged assault on him remains to be seen, however, until further updates.
