‘You can only report on this anti-national? Shame’
A scuffle broke out when a man, who was dressed in casual attire and appeared to be in his late 20s, refused to leave. Within seconds, they dragged him out, as over a dozen policemen looked on.
Indian Express reporter Kaunain Sherrif, who was attacked by lawyers outside the Patiala House court before JNUSU Kanhaiya Kumar was produced. (Source: Express Photo by Ravi Kanojia)
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I was standing inside the witness box, where reporters are usually positioned before hearings start in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen, when I first sensed trouble brewing at the Patiala House complex.
It was at 2.10 pm, minutes before the hearing was to start on the police custody of arrested JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, and I noticed three men dressed in lawyers’ coats glaring at me and two other reporters standing nearby.
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Soon, a scuffle broke out when a man, who was dressed in casual attire and appeared to be in his late 20s, refused to leave. Within seconds, they dragged him out, as over a dozen policemen looked on.
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Soon, another man, again wearing casuals, was dragged out by the group. At this point, the court staff asked them to calm down but in vain. By now, the group of men had started shouting slogans. And then, the three who were watching us asked “all reporters” to leave. I refused, after identifying myself as the legal correspondent of The Indian Express. I showed them my ID card, too. But they still asked me to leave — I refused again.
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Then, they turned towards another reporter who had entered the court. When he refused to show them his ID card, one of them threatened to drag him outside. Then, in an apparent fit of rage, the group dressed in lawyers’ black robes started verbally abusing the reporters. “You can only report on this anti-national, shame on you,” one of them shouted.
Minutes later, they got into an argument with a senior TV journalist, while continuing to call us “anti-national”.
Finally, I saw the police in action — but not in a way that was expected. More than a dozen women officers entered the room and tried to push the women students and teachers outside. As the situation turned ugly, the court staff requested all journalists to leave while the presiding officer stayed put inside his chamber.
I moved outside, only to witness The Economic Times journalist Akshay Deshmane being physically assaulted by the same group, even as police looked on. Then, Manu Shankar, a reporter with Kairali TV, a Malayalam news channel, was beaten up.
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The group in black then turned to me, warning me to stop using my cellphone. They said they would throw me out. A few metres away, I saw a senior legal reporter with the IBN group, Amit Pandey, engaging in an argument with them. Within seconds, he was pushed on the ground and beaten.
One of the group then walked up to me said, “This is what will happen to you if you don’t leave.” On my way out, two of them saw me using my phone and tried to hit me. One blow grazed the left side of my neck. I ran into the chamber of a lawyer to escape the assault. They left me alone.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
