Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: A journalist in Kashmir says he was thrashed by the police “ruthlessly” after he asked two cops to move out of an ATM facility where a woman was withdrawing money.
Imran Muzaffar, a journalist with Greater Kashmir, has been injured in the shoulder and head.
He said he had only requested the policemen to wait outside an Automated Teller Machine cabin of the State Bank of India at Hazratbal in Srinagar.
“I saw a woman was withdrawing money and the two cops had also entered. So I told them to move out and wait for their turn,” Muzaffar added.
The journalist said the cops dragged him by the collar and beat him up in the market place before he was taken to a nearby police station where was roughed up again and detained for half an hour.
“They also threatened of framing me in false cases,” he said.
ATM facilities allow one person at a time and the others are required to wait outside in a queue.
Police officials denied comment on the incident.
‘Women’s safety’
The young journalist believes the cops had no reason to hit him for a “genuine request”.
“After the rape cases and acid attack, there has been a lot of talk going about safety of women. So I thought they should wait outside and not inside the ATM when a woman was there,” he said.
There is concern about lack of women’s safety in Kashmir after Wednesday’s shocking acid attack on a private tutor in Parraypora area in the city.
Authorities say they have already begun a review of laws related to violence against women, after a rise in such cases recently.
Four rapes have been reported in just more than ten days, one that of a 13-year-old girl.
The government has also banned use of curtains and tinted glasses in vehicles after outrage over the gangrape of a girl on a moving bus in country capital, New Delhi.
The journalist said he was warned not to mess with the police again and told “you could be shot as well”.
He was let off only after he “literally begged them”.
“I have never been so terrified before. So I begged them to leave me. I feared for my life,” he added.
