Madhya Pradesh: Journalist Forced to Stripped Half-Naked in Police Station

• Image Credit: Internet

• Apr 9, 2022 | Dhupali Das

The journalist, Kanishka Tiwari, claimed he and his cameraman were arrested and charged with several criminal offences, including infringing and disturbing the public peace. 

Digital Desk: In a post that has gone viral, a group of men, including journalists and theatre artists, were seen stripped down to their underwear inside a police station in Madhya Pradesh. In the viral video, the eight men stood against the wall, hands clasped in front of them.

A local journalist and YouTuber identified in the photo claimed that they were abused, beaten up, and asked to strip naked by police officers when he was covering a protest against a local BJP MLA.

The alleged incident happened on Saturday in Madhya Pradesh's Sidhi district, when the reporter went to cover a protest against the arrest of a theatre artist Neeraj Kunder for allegedly making inappropriate statements against BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla Shukla and his son Kedar Guru Dutt Shukla using a fake Facebook profile.

The journalist, Kanishka Tiwari, claimed he and his cameraman were arrested and charged with several criminal offences, including infringing and disturbing the public peace. 

Further, the journalist claimed that the police allegedly asked him, "Why are you spreading rumours about the MLA?"

The journalist stated that police detained others, including him, for 18 hours.  "The police arrested us at around 8 pm on April 2 and released us at 6 pm on April 3," the journalist claimed.

According to one protestor, several social workers and theatre artists protested Kunder's arrest, but they were brutalised by the police when they raised slogans against the state's BJP government. 

The journalist asserted that the police station's in-charge, Abhishek Singh Parihar took a naked photograph.

"If we published the story, Abhishek Singh Parihar, the police station in-charge, threatened to parade us naked through the city. This is an infringement on our human rights," the journalist stated. 

The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has taken notice of the situation and has asked for strict action against the responsible police officers.