The Congress alleged on Sunday that a journalist was beaten up at Union Home Minister Amit Shah's rally in Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh for talking to women who told him that they were paid to attend the event.
In a post in Hindi on X, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said, "@moliticsindia journalist Raghav Trivedi was brutally beaten up by BJP men at the Home Minister's rally in Rae Bareli. The Home Minister kept speaking and the police kept watching as mute spectators. The journalist was beaten up only because he had spoken to some women who said they were paid to attend the rally." Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said his party stood by the brave journalist who was thrashed at Mr. Shah's rally.
"Such hooliganism under police protection against a hard-working journalist who was simply doing his job at a meeting of the country's Home Minister explains why India ranks 159th in terms of press freedom under Narendra Modi. We all stand with this brave young man," Mr. Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.
He also accused a section of the media of supporting the "lies" of the ruling BJP and said the other section is paying the price for raising the "voice of truth" by risking their lives.
In her post on the microblogging platform, Ms. Vadra said, "The BJP, which has silenced the media in the entire country, cannot tolerate any voice being raised against it. The BJP, which is running a campaign to abolish the Constitution, wants to end democracy in the country and snatch the people's voice." She also shared a video of the journalist in hospital.
Mr. Shah attended a rally in Rae Bareli in support of the BJP's Lok Sabha poll candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh, who is pitted against Mr. Gandhi.
FIR registered
Sadar Station House Officer (SHO) Rajesh Singh said an FIR had been lodged on the basis of a complaint from Sanjeet Sahni, who had alleged that Mr. Trivedi was beaten up by some people after the Home Minister's rally.
The FIR has been registered against unidentified people under Sections 147 (rioting), 323 (voluntary causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intention to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code, the SHO said.
Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel visited the journalist at the hospital.
"Raghav [Trivedi] is saying that they [the crowd] thought he belonged to a different religion as he sports a beard and beat him up," Mr. Baghel said and alleged that the police did not come to the journalist's rescue.
