Two journalists covering Kashmir students protest assaulted by police

SRINAGAR: At least two Kashmiri journalists were assaulted by police on Tuesday while they were covering a protest by the students of a city college. However, the police denied that they were beaten. While eyewitnesses said students were showing solidarity with students protesting against the amended Citizenship Amendment Act across the country, police said the protests were being held for no major cause.

Police said students had come after many days to collect their report cards when they indulged in stone pelting from inside. “The protest was for nothing. It did not escalate,” said superintendent of police, north city, Sajad Shah.

A huge contingent of police had converged outside college premises. Outside the college a group of journalists had also converged to cover the protests when a journalist Azaan Javaid of The Print was confronted by police for shooting with his cellphone camera. Another journalist Anees Zargar, who tried to intervene, was also allegedly assaulted. A video of policemen punching and pushing Azaan Javaid has gone viral on social media.

Javaid said he was shooting a video of police who were detaining a few youth when SHO Rashid Khan snatched his phone When he asked SP Sajad Shah to intervene, he told me to come to his office to collect the phone. “When I protested at that proposition he used expletives while his men thrashed me,” said Javaid. The phone is still with them, he said.

The area’s superintendent of police Sajad Shah said, “Instead of showing his identity, he became confrontational. By the time he revealed his identity matters took a turn for the worse because of mistaken identity,” Shah said. He denied that any policeman assaulted Azan. “I don’t think anybody assaulted him, and I did not abuse him. I had asked him to come to my office but he did not,” he said.