Senior Journalist Assaulted While Covering BJP Protest in Kathua Over Pahalgam Attack

JAMMU AND KASHMIR: A senior journalist was hospitalized after he was allegedly assaulted while covering a BJP protest over the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district on Wednesday.

The journalistic circles have strongly condemned the attack on Dainik Jagran reporter Rakesh Sharma at Kalibari Chowk and demanded registration of an FIR against the accused. A purported video of the incident, showing the assault on the scribe, has gone viral on social media.

Sharma said he was covering a BJP protest led by legislators Devinder Manyal, Rajiv Jasrotia, and Bharat Bhushan when a party activist, Himanshu Sharma, accused the journalists of speaking the “separatist language” for raising questions related to security, which is the domain of the union home ministry.

Manyal was responding in a cordial atmosphere to the questions and said they are writing to the Prime Minister to request a “decisive action” against the terrorists, but the office bearers of the party were irked when the leaders were asked whether the Pahalgam terror attack and infiltration of terrorists into Kathua are not reflective of the central government’s failure to check infiltration from across the border. He said Himanshu's repeated remarks were objected to by the journalists, who moved out of the venue after deciding to boycott the protest.

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