Guwahati: DIGIPUB, an association of digital media organizations, condemned on Friday the mistreatment of independent journalist Sakshi Joshi by Delhi police.
In a statement, the association said, “DIGIPUB condemns in the strongest terms the mistreatment of independent journalist and DIGIPUB member Sakshi Joshi by the Delhi police.”
The incident caught on camera occurred on the night of May3-May -4 2023 while she was at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, covering the protest by India’s women wrestlers alleging sexual harassment by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Singh is a BJP MP and the president of the Wrestling Federation of India.
In a video, Joshi, who went to the protest site following reports of mistreatment of the wrestlers by the police, said the police stopped her from reporting, snatched her phone and camera, and women constables pushed her, tore her clothes and shoved her into a bus.
“The Delhi Police must explain under what law they can stop a reporter from reporting,” the statement said.
In her complaint of May 4 2023 to the Commissioner (Delhi Police), Joshi stated that despite the law prohibiting the arrest and taking a woman into custody after sunset and
before sunrise, she was made to sit in the bus for 10 minutes before she was dropped off at the Mandir Marg police station at two in the morning, after which the gate was closed. She was left on a lonely road and told to go home. Is this not in violation of the law?
“Such a shameful exhibition of the brute police force and the move to censor a journalist from covering a matter of national concern, that too on World Press Freedom Day, is profoundly disturbing and unacceptable and needs to be swiftly addressed by the Delhi police,” it added.
This must not be treated as par for the course. It is not.
In the national interest, journalists must be allowed to report and inform the public on the issues of the day without fear and persecution.
DIGIPUB has demanded Home Minister Amit Shah take cognizance and acknowledge this illegality and that Delhi Police immediately investigate and take action against the erring police officers.