Freelance journalist arrested while reporting on farmers' protests

New Delhi: After having remained mum for hours on the detention of two journalists who were trying to report on the farmers' protest at the Singhu border, the Delhi Police on Sunday morning said that they had registered an FIR against freelance journalist Mandeep Punia — currently on assignment for The Caravan magazine — and arrested him for "misbehaving" with cops on duty and obstructing public servants from doing their job.

But the Delhi Police did not inform Punia's wife Leelashree, a 29-year-old research scholar at Punjab University, until after 15 hours of his detention, according to her statement to the press.

Punia's friend and colleague and a senior editor at The Caravan, Prabhjeet Singh said that he had been working on a story about the "locals" who had managed to get past police barricades and hurl stones at protesting farmers and their links to the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was also looking for leads regarding Ranjeet Singh, who the police claim had attacked the Alipur station SHO. "After he was picked up we contacted several police stations in the vicinity. Some of them said he is in a special cell, some said NIA, some said Narela we went everywhere to find him but couldn't," he said.

After 12 hours, Leelashree received information that he was detained at Samaypur Badli station. "Samaypur Badli police station has no jurisdiction from the place that Mandeep was manhandled and picked up," Singh added.

Curiously, the FIR, a copy of which has been accessed by Millennium Post, was registered at the Alipur police station.

According to the FIR, which is based on a complaint from the SHO of the Prem Nagar police station, barricading had been increased at the Singhu site following violence at the site on Friday. But around 6:30 pm on Saturday, a group of protestors came and tried to break the barricades. The policemen, who were deployed near barricades, tried to convince them to go back but they did not listen. "One of the persons started pulling a constable towards protest site. When others tried to stop the policeman from getting pulled, the protestors started getting violent," police said.

As per the official, senior officers were informed and "minimum" force was used and the situation was brought under control. Other people ran away but the person who tried to pull the constable fell in a nearby ditch and was caught by other policemen. He was identified as Mandeep Punia, a resident of Haryana.

However, according to eyewitnesses at Singhu and several videos of his detention, Punia was being roughly pulled around by about four to five law enforcement officials in full riot gear.

While Punia's whereabouts remained a mystery till Sunday morning, Leelashree, his wife told Millennium Post on Sunday afternoon that she and her lawyer were informed that her husband would be produced before a duty magistrate in Rohini Court at 2 pm on Sunday but the police had already produced him in the Tihar Jail Court's Complex around 1 pm, without informing them.

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