Another journalist, Payal Mehta who is a special correspondent for CNN News18 added that the duo were released after her colleague "pleaded to the crowd with folded hands to let them go".

"Two journalist @arvindgunasekar bleeding with a broken tooth and @Saurabh_Unmute beaten up for doing their job!! @Runjhunsharmas pleaded with the crowd to let them go!!! WTH is going on!!! Pls intervene @AmitShah ji..pls (sic)," she added in another tweet.

Another journalist from CNN News18, Uday Singh Rana added that he'd gotten word that the two were beaten up "as they were filming a mosque being set on fire".

"The mob asked @Runjhunsharmas to go but held @arvindgunasekar back. She and @Saurabh_Unmute did not leave Arvind behind. This is the kind of solidarity we need. Power to all three of them," Rana took to Twitter to recount.

"Arvind is badly hurt, they're on their way to a hospital," he wrote on Twitter.