'Mobile journalism' proving too much to handle for cops

New Delhi: The latest assault on a female photo journalist from an English daily indicates that Delhi Police is struggling to cope with the advent of 'mobile journalism', the latest form of news media that more and more journalists are resorting.

Many journalists from print media and web portals are nowadays dependant on smartphones, for both writing scripts and clicking photographs.

These scribes are unlike their better equipped electronic media counterparts, who are accompanied with a bigger cameras and even OB vans.

During Friday's JNU 'pad yatra', where a large section of the protestors were youngsters, policemen failed to differentiated journalists from protestors and did not hesitate to use force to stop them from marching towards the Parliament complex.

"Most journalists are young and it is hard to differentiate between a journalist and a protestor at times. This confusion leads to mishandling," Deepender Pathak, Special Commissioner of Police said.

However, on Saturday, the protesting mediapersons were in no mood to buy this logic.

They said that Friday's incident was not an sole case.

In the recent past, Delhi Police have often manhandled journalists who cover protests.

"This assault happened even after the female journalist told cops that she is a photo journalist. This shows the rude and ugly face of the law enforcment agencies, like Delhi Police. Even if she was a protestor, was tjos the way to beat her mercilessly? This is unacceptable," said a protesting journalist on Saturday.

There were several occasions last year, when journalists were manhandled by Delhi Police while covering protests in the Capital.

In May 2017, during a protest against Turkey President Recip Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Jamia Millia Islamia University in south East Delhi, Meghnad Bose – a reporter from a new portal – was allegedly slapped by Delhi Police personnel while streaming the protest live on Facebook.

In February 2017, various journalists covering the protest by students of Ramjas College at Maurcie Nagar were assaulted by cops.

In March this year, a photographer with a Hindi daily was allgedly assualted while he was covering the sealing drive in Lajpat Nagar.