The Journalists Attacked In India’s Capital City

Brut India

“If some elements think that by suppressing the media, they will be able to stop the journalists, they are mistaken.” Three Caravan journalists were assaulted in northeast Delhi in August. One of them told Brut what really happened.

Transcript

00:00They were roughing up my colleague Shahid, two women who were snatching, who were jostling

00:23and they were really snatching Shahid's camera, holding him by the strap which was

00:30around his neck.

00:31One of the men who was wearing a dhoti, according to her, he lifted his dhoti and exposed himself.

00:46We were so rude and they were highly offensive and they were really insulting to all three

01:11of us.

01:12We just started convincing them and we are here on a job and we would like to talk to

01:20them also related to the prevailing atmosphere in the area which has been witnessing communal

01:28disharmony ever since the February violence took place in North East Delhi.

01:34So in the melee, some men started roughing up my colleague, even trying to snatch the

01:47camera from him and both Shahid and our woman colleague were in a dilemma after the more

01:57forcefully taking the identity card of Shahid, who happens to be a Muslim journalist, it

02:05is so unfortunate.

02:15So all this was happening when more police came in and they just took us away out of

02:21that place.

02:22By lying to those people that we are taking these three journalists to the police station,

02:29you need not worry.

02:30Four or five men just followed us right up to the vehicle and they continued threatening

02:39us.

02:40Then in front of the policemen, you know, the policemen were not stopping them.

03:10She joined us some 20-25 minutes later at the police station and she was very upset

03:28and she was in a complete state of shock.

03:31She was not able to share with us initially what has happened to her and then gradually,

03:38after sipping some water, we just asked her what happened to her and she slowly just started

03:49whispering in our ears and almost crying but at the same time she was keeping calm also.

03:57She was really trying to suppress her emotions because she was in a totally state of shock

04:06and she was humiliated.

04:09She felt a lot of humiliation in the street, in our absence.

04:13When we were away being ferried to the police station, behind us she suffered a lot.

04:20She suffered sexual abuse, sexual harassment and one of the men who was wearing a dhoti,

04:30according to her, he lifted his dhoti and exposed himself.

04:37She underwent this kind of trauma and there were some women on the other side, they stopped

04:44that man but he didn't stop and then some other boys from that troublesome street, they

04:51started taking pictures of our colleague and she had fallen down and then they started

05:00taking pictures.

05:01She fell down while running away when this man in dhoti came and exposed himself.

05:11We are all the more energetic and we are not much down.

05:18Let me be very clear on this.

05:21If some elements think that by suppressing the media, by misbehaving like that, they

05:30will be able to stop the journalists who actually want to do ground zero reporting, then they

05:37are mistaken.

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