Raipur, February 3: In a shocking incident, a Chhattisgarh-based journalist was brutally thrashed by several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers while he recorded the party's district-level meeting in Raipur. According to police, the incident took place when the journalist was covering the BJP meeting on Saturday afternoon at its Ekatma Parisar office in Raipur. The journalist, identified as Suman Pandey, has sustained minor injuries on his head. Mumbai: Times Now Journalist Attacked With Knuckle Duster. 

Based on Pandey’s complaint, a case has been registered against four persons, including BJP Raipur district president Rajeev Agrawal, a police official said. He said the other three accused as local BJP office-bearers Vijay Vyas, Utkarsh Trivedi and Deena Dongre. Reports inform that no arrests had been made in this connection. The journalist said the BJP leaders there were involved in a scuffle among themselves when the incident happened.

In his complaint, Pandey alleged that he was thrashed when he was covering the BJP meeting in Raipur. "I was recording a video of the meeting on my mobile phone when suddenly BJP leaders started manhandling each other over some issue. Meanwhile, BJP Raipur district president Rajeev Agarwal and another person, Utkarsh Trivedi, asked me to delete the video of the scuffle, which I refused. They then started hitting me and forcefully deleted the video," Pandey was quoted by PTI.

Pandey added that as soon as he alerted others about the incident, several other journalists reached the BJP office and demanded the arrest of those involved in assaulting the journalist. State BJP spokesperson Sacchidanand Upasane, who was also present in the meeting, said his partymen had apologised to Pandey for manhandling him during the meeting.

According to a PTI report, the Upasane said the closed door district level meeting was held to review the defeat in the recent Assembly election. Media persons were asked to leave the meeting room after taking initial footage and party leaders and workers were also asked to keep their mobile switched off," he said. "On finding a man recording the video of the meeting, he was told to stop it and asked to delete the footage. After he introduced himself as a journalist, party leaders said he should delete the video," Upasane added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 03, 2019 01:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).