Press photographer attacked, booked on false charges

Miscreants attacked a freelance press photographer Ajeesh when he was taking a photograph at a petrol bunk and snatched away his camera valued over Rs 70,000/- on July 16. The Kumaraswamy layout police took him into custody and booked a case against him on charges of creating disturbance. It did not end there. Ajeesh had to spend a day in jail (they did give me VIP treatment, he acknowledges!) and is now presently on bail.

The question is, how can the police mistake a pressman for a miscreant? Ajeesh has now appealed to the Police Commissioner to withdraw the case falsely arraigned against him and initiate action to recover his expensive camera equipment.

On Wednesday, members of Kannada Singa Sena called Ajeesh and asked him to accompany them to a petrol bunk in Ilyas Nagar, where they suspected the bunk management of cheating the public. Accordingly he went along with them and while taking a photograph, a scuffle broke out between the petrol bunk management and the Kannada Singa Sena members, in which Ajeesh was beaten up, and his camera snatched away from him. 

Later, the police intervened and took him to custody along with the members of the Kannada Singa Sena, ignoring his protests that he was only a press photographer, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the Kannada Singa Sena or the petrol bunk management, and was in no way connected to the incidents that happened.

At Kumaraswamy layout police station, when Ajeesh told the ACP about his being a media person, she brushed it off saying she had pressure from higher-ups and clubbed him together with the other accused.
"Despite my innocence, I had to undergo the emotional agony of being sent to jail for a day, for no fault of mine. I was merely discharging my duty as a media person," said Ajeesh. "Instead of bringing the real culprits to book, and helping me to recover my camera, the police sent me, an innocent man who was merely doing his duty as a press photographer, to jail."

Ajeesh also has issued an appeal to the mainstream media to help him get justice. "Today, it happened to me. Tomorrow, it could be one of them. I do not want to believe that the mainstream media takes cudgels only when some of the big guns are involved. I would like to believe that it is not a question of big guns or small fry, but about the freedom of the press. And that the freedom of the press is not the domain of only the mainstream media," he remarked.

The jury is out on that….