Only for doing his job as a journalist and covering the goods train derailment near Dhimanpura in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday night, reporter Amit Sharma was brutally thrashed and beaten up by a group of Railway Police personnel.
A video of the incident has gone viral on social media and media fraternity as well as the general people are enraged by the repetitive incidents of journalists being targeted only for doing their job.
Watch the video here:
“They were in plain clothes. One hit my camera and it fell down. When I picked it up, they hit and abused me. I was locked up, stripped and they urinated in my mouth,” NDTV quoted Sharma, a stringer for TV channel News24, as saying.
News agency IANS reported that several local journalists rushed to the police station on getting to know about Sharma’s arrest and the stringer was released on Wednesday morning following protests by other journalists.
Station House Officer (SHO) Rakesh Kumar and Government Railway Police (GRP) & constable Sunil Kumar have been suspended.
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“We have come across a video where a journalist has been beaten up & put up in a lock up. DGP UP OP Singh has ordered for immediate suspension of SHO GRP Shamli Rakesh Kumar & Const. Sanjay Pawar,” the Uttar Pradesh police tweeted.
Recently, a journalist, Prashant Kanojia was arrested for posting “defamatory content” on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
However, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered immediate release calling the action taken by the UP government a “glaring case of deprivation of liberty.”
“Arrest? Arrest? A citizen’s right to liberty has been infringed. We have gone through the records… Yes, these sort of tweets should not be made… But to arrest him? Liberty guaranteed under fundamental rights is sacrosanct. Whatever it is, he (Kanojia) has to be released on bail immediately,” Justice Indira Banerjee said while listening to the case.
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