Haryana Director General of Police S.N. Vashisht on Tuesday sought to downplay the completely unwanted and unprovoked attack on scores of media personnel covering the police action at Satlok Ashram in Barwala, Hisar.
Some of the journalists injured in the police action, like Siddharth Pandey of NDTV, claimed that they were attacked despite being hundreds of metres away from the scene of violence. He said the attack began after some camerapersons began shooting the injured who were being dragged out from the ashram.
While all through the day the electronic media showed footage of how it was attacked, Mr. Vashisht chose to play with words saying while the operation was on, “everyone’s life was in danger and the first duty of the police, which is a trained force, was to keep the media at a safe distance while bullets were being fired from the ashram.”
Mr, Vashisht admitted that Times Now and Aaj Tak had called him in the morning saying their reporters were being stopped. “I gave entry to 86 media personnel and told the IG Range about it. I also sent a DSP with them. I treat media as my ally. You show the truth.”
On what provoked the brutal attack on the media persons, he said “possibly some personnel treated the media badly while trying to keep them away from harm and if any one is at fault, we will investigate.” He also claimed that there were no orders to damage the cameras of the television crews.
