A reporter was allegedly beaten by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party in a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareilly where Union Home Minister Amit Shah was campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections.
The incident occurred on Sunday, May 12. The journalist Raghav Trivedi working for online news portal Molitics, was covering Shah’s rally and is believed to have questioned some women who had come to listen to the senior BJP leader.
Suddenly he was approached by some BJP men who mistook him to be a Muslim due to his beard. “I was reporting the rally. Some of the women in the participants told me that they were there because they had been provided with money. After sometimes, I was approached by BJP people who asked me to switch off my camera. After that I was assaulted,” he said.
“Police were also present. Other journalists were present. I tried to call for help but none came forward. My cameraman fled the scene,” he said.
You can watch the video here.
“Just because I sport a beard and wore a kurta pyjama, they labelled me as a Muslim,” Trivedi said while lying on a hospital bed.
The Congress posted about the incident on X stating, “Amit Shah had a rally in Raebareli, UP. Here the women told a journalist that they were brought to the rally after being paid money. The journalist recorded this. After this, BJP goons caught the journalist and asked him to delete the video. When the journalist refused, BJP goons kidnapped him, then took him to a room behind the stage and beat him badly. They also snatched money from the journalist. BJP goons had recently vandalised vehicles parked outside the Congress office in Amethi and attacked Congress workers. These incidents are telling that the people of BJP are frustrated with the defeat that is visible. Now the injustice is about to end.”
