Bihar JD-U MLA beats up journalists, arrested

The DGP, however, refused to disclose where the MLA and the others were being taken. Singh and his associates allegedly beat up a reporter of NDTV 24×7 Prakash Singh and camerapersons Habib Ali and Ajay Kumar when they had gone to take his reaction to the alleged rape and murder of a woman.

The woman was alleged to have been raped and then killed by Singh and his associates.

The journalist was beaten up with sticks and rifle butts and kept confined in the house of the MLA for over an hour, the complaint said.

When some other journalists launched a protest in front of Singh’s residence, they were attacked and chased away by the MLA and his men.

Cameraman of TV news agency ANI Ajay Kumar’s hand was fractured and his camera smashed during the melee. The windscreen of his vehicle too was smashed.

The Opposition RJD in Bihar has called for a state-wide bandh on Friday to protest against the attack on journalists and sought a CBI inquiry into the matter.

“The attack on the mediapersons is an assault on the freedom of the media,” Leader of the Opposition Rabri Devi, who visited the Gardanibagh hospital where the journalists were being treated, said.

According to the complaint, the ANI journalist was injured when the scribes protesting against the assault on their NDTV colleagues were attacked by the MLA and his men in the presence of dozens of police guards.

Prakash Singh was dragged inside the sprawling bungalow where Anant Singh and his associates beat him up with batons and rifle butts and confined him in the premises for nearly two hours.

He later said that he had fixed an appointment with the MLA after receiving a letter and a phone call from a person named Munna, who claimed to be the brother of rape victim Reshma Khatoon.

Munna, Prakash Singh said, had alleged that Reshma was raped by Anant Singh and his men and then killed. Her body was dumped on a roadside at Shastri Nagar in the city.

The complaint said the NDTV reporter had sought the appointment with Singh after a woman’s body was recovered from the locality on Wednesday.

Prakash said he had earlier received a letter purported to have been written by Reshma, who claimed she was allegedly raped by Singh, his associates who included a prominent builder Mukesh Singh and bodyguard Vipin Singh.

The letter, which was circulated among some other TV news channels too, said she had also written to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and some police officials narrating her plight but since no action was initiated she released her letters to the media.

The letter said she was lured into the trap by Mukesh, who promised her a job in his company and claimed that the MLA wanted her to register false cases against some people for which he had allegedly offered her money.