india

Updated: Feb 25, 2020 06:18 IST

As people supporting and protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) clashed in northeast Delhi on Monday, the mobs did not even spare journalists.

Hindustan Times photographer Sanchit Khanna had gone to cover the violence at Karawal Nagar when his motorcycle was set ablaze by a group of unidentified rioters.

A while later, another group cornered him and deleted the pictures he had taken of the violence, threatened and assaulted him.

Khanna had reached the spot around 12.30pm on Monday when violence began intensifying around Karawal Nagar. He had parked his motorcycle near a police post to cover the protests.

“I was on the terrace of a building to cover the area and saw a group of men setting vegetable carts and a car on fire. They headed towards the police post and started pouring petrol over the parked vehicles there. Before I could react, I saw the vehicles, including my motorcycle, up in flames,” said Khanna.

Despite this, Khanna continued to document the violence. Minutes later, he heard some men running up the building. This group, of around four to five unarmed masked men, cornered Khanna who was with photographers from other news publications.

“These people kept insisting that I show them the pictures that I had taken. One person was yelling to others to confiscate my camera’s memory card,” he said.

“They threatened to smash my camera,” he said.

“While some of the people from the group kept abusing me and pulling me towards the crowd, a senior member of the group asked me to show him my official identity card as well as my documents. They took a picture of those and eventually let me go,” Khanna said.