Aam Aadmi Party leader Saurabh Bharadwaj also alleged that the two women reporters had been “very brutally beaten” for questioning Gupta and criticised the chief minister.
Public-policy professional and Cockroach Janta Party spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka described Shaheen as one of the finest journalists he had encountered in Delhi and condemned the alleged action by the police.
The allegations come against the backdrop of 4PM‘s recent reporting on the Delhi government. The news organisation has itself suggested that the possibility of a connection between its reporting and Thursday’s action should be examined, but there is currently no independent evidence establishing such a link.
The immediate questions, therefore, are whether the journalists were detained lawfully, what prompted the police action, whether force was used and, crucially, whether Shaheen’s religious identity played any role in the alleged assault. The journalists’ medical examinations, CCTV footage and the Delhi Police’s account are likely to be key to establishing what happened.
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