A photograph of about half-a-dozen individuals including a journalist stripped half-naked in a police station in Madhya Pradesh's Sidhi district is going viral in social media.
Kanishk Tiwari, one of the victims, who claims to be a social media reporter, alleges that he was threatened by police, a BJP MLA and the latter's men not to report news against them.
Tiwari said he and a few Congress workers and other theatre artistes were arrested on April 2 for protesting the arrest of theatre artiste Neeraj Kunder at Sidhi police station. He alleged that he and others were stripped and thrashed at the police station.
Police, however, said that Tiwari and seven others were arrested as they were creating a ruckus in the police station.
According to police, Kunder was arrested for allegedly making obscene remarks against BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla and his son Guru Dutt on social media.
“Kunder, director of a local drama institute, was arrested for continuously defaming Shukla and his son. Kunder had made a fake Facebook profile for this purpose. He was arrested on April 2,” Sidhi Kotwali police station in-charge Mukesh Soni said.
Soni dismissed Tiwari’s charge that all the eight arrested people were thrashed by police. He said, “Their clothes were taken off to check them and this is a normal. They were not thrashed at the police station.”
Soni further said that the accused were not nude. “They were in their underwear,” he said. The police officer also said their clothes were removed so that they did not use them to commit suicide.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday hit out at the ruling BJP over the incident and said the ''New India'' government was afraid of truth.
"In lockup, the fourth pillar of democracy was stripped. Either sit on the lap of the government and laud it or go to jail. 'New India' government is afraid of truth," he tweeted in Hindi.
On Thursday, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan took cognizance of the incident and ordered action against those responsible.
The police have also ordered an inquiry. (Inputs from UNI)
