Attacks – Journalists

At least four media workers, including one woman journalist, were assaulted while reporting the violent mob protests and demonstrations in Beldanga in Murshidabad district on January 16 and 17. Demonstrations and major road blockades followed the suspicious death of 36-year-old migrant worker and hawker Alauddin Sheikh, whose body was found a day earlier in his rented room in Belddanga’s Suiapur Kumarpur gram panchayat area on January 15. It is alleged that Sheikh was beaten to death and his murder made to look like a suicide. Indian media reported that locals believed the murder was related to the hostile treatment of Bengali-speaking migrant workers. Protesters demanded a thorough investigation into Sheikh’s death and stronger mechanisms to protect migrant workers from Bengal.

Zee24 reporter Soma Maity was attending the scene of the protests with her cameraperson on January 16 when they were physically assaulted by protestors. Maity said that during the attack she was lifted by multiple men, her legs restrained, her phone taken, her clothes pulled at and her body touched. The cameraperson sustained head injuries and was later hospitalised. Both alleged that the protestors wielded sharp objects during the attack.

The following day on January 17, ABP Anand reporter Parthapratim Ghosh and photojournalist Ujjwal Ghosh were also attacked by protestors when fresh unrest erupted as locals blocked National Highway 12 at Barua More in Beldanga, bringing traffic on the national highway to a standstill. The two media workers were beaten and had bricks thrown at them as protestors attempted to force them to stop recording by damaging their camera equipment. The two fled the scene separately. During the unrest, protesters also damaged a railway gate and attempted to disrupt train services along the Sealdah-Lalgola railway section of Eastern Railway. A State transport corporation bus was also vandalised by the mob and some passengers were injured in the incident.