Press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders has condemned police ‘mistreatment’ of a photographer by authorities in Kashmir.
Newspaper photographer Aman Farooq is reported to have been arrested by anti-riot police while documenting a demonstration in Srinagar on 18 December.
Farooq resisted police requests to delete photos he had taken of them, and the images ended up in the following day’s edition of the Greater Kashmir daily.
However, the story doesn’t end there. After being released from the police station, the photographer was apparently hit by an ambulance as he returned to his newspaper’s office on his motorbike.
According to Reporters Without Borders, police then beat him up and took him back into custody. He was released around midnight the same day.
‘Journalists are increasingly the targets of intimidation and violence while reporting in the field in Kashmir,’ said a Reporters Without Borders spokesman. ‘The authorities must one day start punishing those responsible.’
