New Delhi: A photograph is going viral on the internet showing a group of eight men stripped down to their undergarments while they stand against a wall with their hands clasped in front. It is being claimed that the picture in question was from a police station in Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi district, and among the men pictured is a journalist who is being “targeted” for questioning a local BJP MLA.
According to Kanishka Tiwari, the journalist in question who runs a YouTube channel, he and his cameraperson were arrested on Saturday, April 2, when they went to a local police station to inquire why theatre artiste Neeraj Kunder was arrested. Kunder was allegedly arrested for making “indecent remarks” against BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla Shukla and his son Kedar Guru Dutt Shukla on social media.
The Wire has not been able to independently verify Tiwari’s credentials.
Tiwari along with others in the picture were kept in the custody for 18 hours, from 8 pm on April 2 to 6 pm on April 3. It was then, Tiwari claimed, that the particular photograph was clicked by the in-charge of the police station, Abhishek Singh Parihar.
He alleged that the cop in question had “threatened us to parade naked in the city if we run the story”, adding that the police had made the post viral. “This is a violation of our human rights,” he said.
Tiwari also claimed that several sections were slapped against him and his cameraperson, including trespassing and disturbance of public peace. “Why are you running stories against the MLA?” Tiwari said he was allegedly asked by the police, according to NDTV.
“We were beaten, abused and were asked to remove our clothes,” The Quint quoted Tiwari as saying.
Among the other arrested were theatre artistes who also claimed that they were beaten up by the police when they protested Kunder’s arrest and raised slogans against the BJP government in the state. Kunder, who is the director of Indravati Natya Samiti in Sidhi district, has been reportedly working to save the art of Vindhyas.
Reportedly, Kunder had created a fake Facebook ID in the name of Anurag Mishra and had allegedly made “indecent remarks” against BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla Shukla and his son Kedar Guru Dutt Shukla.
Narendra Bahadur Singh, another theatre artiste, who went to the police station to inquire about Kunder’s arrest, said, “We had just gone to give the memorandum, but the police decided to assault us. Journalist Kanishk Tiwari was also beaten up. He has exposed scams by the local police as well MLA Kedarnath Shukla, and he too faced their ire.”
Meanwhile, Mukesh Kumar Shrivastava, police chief of Sidhi district, said there were no journalists among the arrested but only “miscreants”.
“The incident happened on April 2, one Mr. Kanishk Tiwari along with some other people had gone to the Kotwali police station and were creating ruckus over the arrest of one theatre artist Neeraj Kunder. Kanishk and others were kept in preventive detention and were later arrested under IPC Section 151. They were released on bail on April 3,” The Quint quoted Shrivastava as saying.
On the issue of the viral photo that shows Tiwari and others stripped down to their undergarments in the police station, Shrivastava said, “It’s a normal procedure to ensure that none of them could attempt anything unwanted, such as killing themselves. The photo has come to my attention – and I have ordered an inquiry into the matter. Whosoever clicked and distributed the photo will soon be found and legal action will be taken against those involved.”
The chief minister of the state, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, has also taken note of the incident and has asked for strict action against the guilty police officers, as per the NDTV report.
However, Tiwari countered the police’s version stating that he was being “targeted” for his “critical journalism”.
“I am a journalist. I have been asking tough questions about politicians, especially MLA Kedarnath Shukla and the police department here. My YouTube channel mpsandeshnews24 has over 170K subscribers. I am being targeted for my critical journalism,” Tiwari added.
Among those arrested were theatre artistes and supporters of Kunder. All of them were released on April 3.
Calling it an “unpardonable crime”, the Press Club of India (PCI) lamented that “atrocities against media persons [are] reaching an unprecedented zenith…primarily in the BJP governed states”.
On the issue of police stating that none among the arrested were journalists, a PCI press statement said, “In order to defend itself, the Madhya Pradesh Police and state apparatus are propagating the theory that the arrested persons were not journalists. Whether arrested persons were journalists or not, or just ordinary citizens, nowhere in the criminal procedure code is it mentioned that arrested persons can be undressed and humiliated in public glare and their naked photos be displayed on digital media platforms.”
The press body demanded that the Madhya Pradesh government compensated them for the mental agony and physical harassment they had endured at the hands of the police. It also called upon the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to take a suo moto notice of atrocities against journalists and civil society members taking place in the country.
This article first appeared on thewire.in
