A group of protesters assaulted an ANI cameraperson and broke his camera while he was trying to record a police drone being brought down with kite strings near the Shambhu border on Wednesday.

Sikander, who was accompanying ANI Chandigarh bureau reporter Karan Verma, received treatment at the Civil Hospital in Rajpura for a head injury and fracture in his right arm.

Several protesters are using kite strings to bring down police drones being used to lob tear gas shells at the protest site. As protesters brought down a drone around 6 pm on Wednesday, Sikander tried to capture the incident on his camera. Over 100 protesters then mobbed him and thrashed him. Verma was also assaulted as he tried to intervene and sustained minor injuries.

Around 10 protesters took the duo away from the mob and to the hospital after Sikander screamed “media se hoon, media se hoon (I am from the media)”.

It’s not clear why protesters targeted Sikander. While a section of the protesters claimed that the group mistook him for being linked to the police force, Sikander was wearing a press card and gear identifying him as a media professional at the time of the incident. 

ANI is yet to issue a statement over the incident.

Newslaundry reached out to ANI’s Chandigarh bureau head Karan Kapoor, but he refused to comment on the issue.

The incident involving Sikander took place on the same day ABP journalist Jagwinder Patial was manhandled, heckled, and his earphone smashed by protesters at Shambhu border, amid sloganeering of “Godi media murdabad” and “Godi media wapas jao”.  

A video of the incident showed Patial surrounded by protesting farmers sloganeering against him. Some of them eventually escorted him away from the crowd. Read here.

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