Shocking pictures of eight people, including a journalist, who were stripped and assaulted inside a police station were widely circulated on social media on Thursday. The incident reportedly took place in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh.
This came after Neeraj Kunder, a theatre artiste, was called to the Kotwali police station on Saturday. Earlier, BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla’s son filed a police complaint, alleging that a Facebook profile named Anurag Mishra was posting objectionable comments against him and his father, police said.
As the cyber crime department of the police arrested Neeraj in the incident on Saturday, more than 50 people, including a youtuber Kanishk Tiwari, and several theatre artistes and activists, gathered outside the police station in protest, sources said.
According to a journalist, during the protest, some of them started sloganeering against (MP CM) Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP and the local MLA. Police claimed that they tried to reason with the protesters that they have valid evidence against Neeraj but they did not listen. The police arrested some of the protesters…They were beaten up and put in a lock-up. They were stripped and then some cops took their photos and leaked them. No one has access to the police station so it’s obvious that the police leaked those pictures.
However, Sidhi SP Mukesh Kumar Shrivastav said, “We have attached TI Manoj Soni and Amilia SHO Abhishek Singh Parihar and an inquiry has been initiated against them in connection with the leaking of photos. But this matter is different from the initial offence which was registered by us on March 16. Actually, the initial complaint came to us five to six months ago after which we started our investigation. The FIR against Neeraj was registered on March 16 after we got a response from Facebook. On April 2, we arrested Neeraj, which led to the protest.”
The SP said that Neeraj’s supporters were raising slogans against the CM and BJP. “We tried to reason with them but they were not ready to listen. They blocked the road. So we took preventive action but all of them were given bail the next day.”
Earlier, in a shocking statement, SHO Manoj Soni had said. “We keep them in jail in this way so that they cannot commit suicide using their clothes.”
However, police said disciplinary action has been initiated against two officers for leaking the pictures, and that the journalist who was arrested is facing another case against him linked to trespass on a nursing hostel property.