In contrast to the peaceful polling during Phase I in Rajasthan last week, irate villagers in Dausa — NPP leader Kirori Lal Meena’s constituency — on Thursday thrashed photojournalists and looted their equipment and other belongings.
At Santha, four photojournalists —Rohit Jain Paras, Sunil Sharma, Rajesh and Gyan Prakash — were caught in the crossfire between irate villagers and security forces.
Confronted by the stone-pelting mob, the presspersons — visiting booths as part of a Directorate of Information and Public Relations programme — tried to identify themselves by showing their cameras to the miscreants.
However, the mob smashed the windscreen of their vehicle, pulled them out and beat them up.
“They thrashed us with heavy stones, smashed our cameras and took away our laptops and cash,” said Mr. Paras, a freelance photojournalist contributing to The Hindu and the Press Trust of India, among other publications.
An Indo-Tibetan Border Police force fired 14 rounds at the mob, resulting in injuries to five persons.
Beaten up by cops in KulgamPTI reports from Srinagar:
Two photojournalists working for international news agencies were allegedly beaten by the police while covering polling in the Anantnag constituency, prompting the police to order a probe into the incident.
Farooq Javid (EPA) and Javid Ahmad Dar (Xinhua) were beaten up in Kulgam district when they were covering protests by youth.
