Journalist from Kashmir beaten up in Pune, told he would be “sent back”

Team Udayavani, Feb 23, 2019, 4:59 AM IST

Pune: A 24-year-old journalist from Jammu and Kashmir was beaten up in Maharashtra’s Pune. The incident is yet another amid reports of assault on Kashmiris after the Pulwama terror attack.
The local police, who earlier dubbed it as an incident of road rage, registered a case against two suspected attackers on Friday evening and arrested one of them.

The journalist was allegedly thrashed by the two men on Thursday night during a fight at a traffic signal.

Jibran Nazir, who works with a newspaper in Pune, said the men told him that they would “send him back to Kashmir”.

Mr Nazir, however, stated that it was not an “organised” attack.

The attackers later apologised to him at the police station, he said.

A police official said it was an incident of road rage and not linked with the Pulwama attack.

The incident came a day after students from Kashmir studying in a college in Yavatmal in Maharashtra were attacked, allegedly by members of the Yuva Sena, the youth wing of the Shiv Sena.

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Mr Nazir said he was attacked on Pune’s Tilak Road around 10.45 pm when he was returning home on a motorbike. As he stopped at a traffic signal, two men on a motorbike behind him started honking, asking him to move, which led to a fight.

Noticing that his motorbike had a Himachal Pradesh (HP) registration number, the two said they would send him off to Himachal Pradesh.

When Mr Nazir corrected them, saying he was a journalist from Jammu and Kashmir, the two beat him up, saying “we will send you back to Kashmir, do your journalism there,” he claimed.

They snatched his mobile phone, damaged his bike and fled, he said.

Mr Nazir said he decided not to pursue the matter further and withdrew his police complaint.

Later on Friday evening, the Pune Police registered a case, on their own, against Azharuddin Shaikh, 32, and Dattatray Lavate, 35, the two suspects.

While Azharuddin Shaikh was arrested, the police were in the process of arresting Dattatray Lavate, he said.