Attacks – Journalists

Charges of police brutality and groping during Friday’s JNU protest march have so far led to departmental action against two lower-rung cops and an FIR against students that cites charges carrying a maximum cumulative jail term of 11 years. The police have suspended a woman constable of their armed wing and a male head constable on charges of “stealing” Hindustan Times photojournalist Anushree Fadnavis’s camera.

Footage shows Anushree Fadnavis, a photographer with Hindustan Times, being roughed up by police in New Delhi on Friday. “I was clicking constables kicking a student who was on the ground. Suddenly an officer said, ‘Iska camera tod do’. Several women constables began to hit me. They snatched my camera. I begged them, ‘Please don’t break it’,” said Fadnavis, fresh on the job. She had not got her camera back till Friday night. File pictures

Fadnavis’s complaint was not, however, converted into an FIR, which could have led to arrest, prosecution and eventually jail for the suspended duo. The duration of the suspensions is not clear, nor have the cops been named.