Three journalists with The Caravan magazine were allegedly assaulted by a mob in northeast Delhi on Tuesday, while they were reporting. Two of the journalists were identified as Prabhjit Singh and Shahid Tantray. The team included a female journalist, who, according to a statement issued by the magazine last night, was sexually harassed and physically assaulted.
In a statement released on Twitter The Caravan said, "After the mob began attacking her, @shahidtantray and @Prabhtalks, she managed to extricate herself and escape to a neighbouring gully. Here young men surrounded her and took her pictures and videos without her consent, and verbally harassed her. A middle-aged man exposed his genitals to her, shook his penis and made lewd facial expressions at her."
As the woman staffer attempted to reach the Bhajanpur station, the mob attacked her again, the statement added. "The attackers beat her on her head, arms, hips and chest," it said.
The Caravan said that among those in the mob which threatened to kill their reporters while using communal slurs, was a person dressed in a saffron kurta, who claimed to be a BJP general secretary.
The magazine added that upon learning the name of one of the journalists, the mob beat him and threatened to kill him. "In his complaint, @Prabhtalks wrote that were he not present, 'the mob led by that saffron-clad man would have lynched Shahid for his Muslim identity,'" the statement said.
The Caravan has produced a series of stories on the Delhi riots. The attack happened in Subhash Mohalla in northeast Delhi, from where The Caravan recently also did a story on how mobs had allegedly gathered outside a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood on the day of the Ayodhya event and raised communally charged slogans after which women complainants were slapped by police as they went to record a statement at the Bhajanpura police station.
Over 50 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the riots that broke out in the capital in February. Many journalists reporting from the communally tense area have claimed that they have been harassed and assaulted by such mobs.
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