As violence spread, journalists mobbed, heckled and attacked

As clashes between pro-CAA and anti-CAA groups turned into a full-blown riot that spread across north-east Delhi Tuesday, several journalists covering the incidents of violence ended up sustaining injuries, while many more were threatened by mobs resorting to arson, gunfire and stone pelting.

Hindustan Times correspondents Soumya Pillai and Fareeha Iftikhar, who were reporting from Bhajanpura, were surrounded by a mob and chased by two bikers. “The mob surrounded our car. We managed to break free but then two bikers from the mob chased us. We escaped only after leaving the area,” Pillai said.

Reporters at the spot were asked to identify their religion and show proof. Almost every reporter who was at the centre of the clashes were warned not to take out their cellphones and notebooks.

HT correspondent Anvit Srivastava was stopped near Karawal Nagar and a mob threatened to thrash him unless he proved his religious identity. “They asked me if I could show anything to prove if I am a Hindu. I offered them my identity card but they insisted that I show them some religious thread, pendant or tilak to substantiate my claim. When I could show none, they asked me why I didn’t sport a tilak? They were armed with rods. They later let me go after some of their peers intervened and checked my identity card,” Srivastava said.

Several other journalists covering the protest also reported being heckled, mobbed, and threatened. In all the cases, the rioters wore helmets or covered their faces with clothes to mask their identity; they also carried rods and sticks . At least two NDTV reporters said they were attacked by the mob while covering the violence in north-east Delhi.

“Compared to my colleagues, what I experienced was nothing. I got away scot-free,” said Mariyam Alvi, an NDTV reporter who was attacked at one of the clash sites.

By evening, the photograph of a journalist, identified as Akash, had surfaced on social media with agency reports saying that he had sustained a bullet injury while covering the riots. HT could not independently verify this.

In a joint statement, Press Club of India (PCI) and Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC) expressed “serious concerns that journalists on duty have come under attack while covering the communal violence rocking northeast Delhi since last Sunday”.