The incident took place in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar when journalist Narendra Pratap was anchoring an election talk show for the Hindi news channel ‘Bharat Samachar’. The video, that has gone viral on social media, shows BJP workers brutally thrashing the student and calling him a terrorist.
Muzzafarnagar: A group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers thrashed a student for in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday for speaking against the government during a TV news talk show.
The incident occurred the same day that a group of saffron-clad men were filmed beating up two Kashmiri dry-fruit sellers.
Journalist Narendra Pratap was anchoring an election talk show for the Hindi news channel ‘Bharat Samachar’. The video, that has gone viral on social media, shows a mob brutally thrashing the student and calling him a terrorist.
The student, identified as Adnan, was in Muzaffarnagar to write his board exams. His parents live in Saudi Arabia.
“I was passing by. I saw there was a show going on so I participated. I said there was no work happening. They started saying things like I am a terrorist. Then they started beating me up. They were BJP people. Police haven’t taken any action yet. I want them to be punished. They beat me up just because I am a Muslim. I spoke against the BJP. That is why they beat me,” Adnan told the media.
The Quint spoke to Pratap, who narrated the sequence of events leading to the student’s thrashing.
“The show was at 11 am in Muzaffarnagar. Political leaders of different parties were present. We were discussing the local issues the area faces. Till the time the BJP members were speaking, everything was going fine. But the moment anybody else, especially from any other political party started speaking, the BJP members would start chanting ‘Modi, Modi’,” said Pratap. The chants led to an argument between the members of the BJP and the RLD, which even got physical.
“There was a student (Adnan) present in the show. I asked him about employment and education opportunities in the area. He started speaking. The BJP members then tried to stop him from speaking because he said there were no changes taking place. He hardly spoke 3-4 sentences, but the BJP members started thrashing him up,” Pratap told Quint.
“He started bleeding and ran for his life. The RLD members saved him. They wanted to get the police involved and took him away,” said Pratap.
“Whoever was speaking against the government, they (BJP workers) did not let them speak. There were some members of the Bhim Army as well, they didn’t let them speak either,” Pratap said.
