Railway cops assault journo in UP; victim says "they urinated in my mouth"

On the day the Supreme court ordered the release of a journalist arrested by the Yogi Adityanath’ government for a tweet that had “objectionable comments”, another shocking case of journalist being abused and thrashed by the government railway police has come to light. The entire sequence of events, which took place in Shamli in western Uttar Pradesh, was captured on a mobile phone and uploaded in the social media.

The journalist, Amit Sharma alleged that a group of government railway police assaulted and locked him up when he was covering the derailment of a train in Shamli district. “They were in plain clothes. One hit my camera and it fell down. When I picked it up, they hit and abused me. I was locked up, stripped and they urinated in my mouth.” he said.

The police personnel allegedly snatched away the victim’s camera and mobile. On hearing the news, local reporters rushed to the police station to demand his release. They also got in touch with the higher-ups in the police hierarchy to register complaints.

On seeing the video, the Uttar police swung into action and suspended the SHO and the constable. “We have come across a video where a journalist has been beaten up & put up in a lock up. DGP UP OP Singh has ordered for immediate suspension of SHO GRP Shamli Rakesh Kumar & Const. Sanjay Pawar”, Uttar Pradesh police tweeted.

#WATCH Shamli: GRP personnel thrash a journalist who was covering the goods train derailment near Dhimanpura tonight. He says, "They were in plain clothes. One hit my camera&it fell down. When I picked it up they hit&abused me. I was locked up, stripped&they urinated in my mouth" pic.twitter.com/nS4hiyFF1G

— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) June 11, 2019

Amit Sharma was released in the morning of June 12 after protests outside the station.

“10 to 15 days ago, I had done a story on them. The mobile phone that they snatched from me had the footage of the story, Amit Sharma said.