Police beat reporter on Srinagar street

Indian policemen yesterday gave Gowhar Bhat, a reporter for the Greater Kashmir daily, a beating on a street in Srinagar, the capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the photos taken by a colleague, one can see a dozen police officers smiling as they lay into Bhat with their batons. Led by Sub-Inspector Javaid Ahmad of the Kothibagh district police station, the policemen attacked Bhat while he was covering a People’s Democratic Party demonstration. “I was covering the demonstration when a policeman came up and slapped me for no reason,” Bhat told Reporters Without Borders. “I told him I was a journalist but he did not calm down. A dozen of his colleagues surrounded me and hit me with their batons.” Two journalists who tried to help him were also beaten. “The policemen responsible for this gratuitous violence against a journalist must be punished,” Reporters Without Borders said.