On Friday, a journalist was detained for hours and allegedly abused by Lucknow police over the violence that broke out in several parts of Uttar Pradesh during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Omar Rashid, Uttar Pradesh correspondent for a mainstream newspaper, alleged that during detention a police officer hurled communal slurs at him and even threatened to tear his beard.
The journalist while speaking to a news channel revealed that he and his friend were picked by UP police from a restaurant where he was using wifi to file his story. Cops interrogated him and his friend and later took them to a police station.
Narrating his ordeal, Omar said that his friend was brutally assaulted inside the police station and cops accused him of being the main conspirator behind the violence during anti-CAA protests.
“Each time I was trying to ask them something they asked me to shut up. They used expletives and said you can put your journalism elsewhere, we don’t care about it. They told me they had proof against me. They put us in a jeep again and took us to an outpost. Another police officer used a lot of communal slurs against me and said he would tear my beard,” Omar was quoted as saying. He was released only after his colleagues informed the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister’s Office about his detention.
Omar, who hails from Kashmir and whose account of what happened during his detention, said that he was released and cops who threatened him apologized for “confusion”
CAA Protests: 10 arrested at Daryaganj, 19 under detention at Delhi Gate
