Ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s planned Friday visit to Bhagalpur, his party’s Bhagalpur MP Ajay Mandal and his men allegedly abused and brutally thrashed two local journalists at the city’s airport on Wednesday (January 29, 2025). The injured scribes, Kunal Shekhar and Sumit Kumar, were admitted to hospital and their phones were not only seized but reset.
“We had reached the airport ground which was on high alert for a mock-drill in view of the Chief Minister’s forthcoming visit to the district on February 1 and we, the gathered journalists, suddenly saw the local JD-U MP’s SUV entering into the venue but the MP was not sitting inside. The men sitting in the vehicle asked us not to shoot but we kept on and later within minutes the MP too reached the spot and they started abusing and thrashing us brutally,” a local journalist working for a news channel, who did not wish to be identified, told The Hindu over phone.
Videos deleted from phones
Another journalist working for a Hindi vernacular newspaper, who is also president of the district photojournalists association, echoed his account, adding that the injured journalist’s phones had been seized and reformatted. When Tilkamanjhi police attempted to return the phones of the injured journalists, they refused to accept the devices as they had been “formatted and several of their shoots were deleted”, the journalists added. “We refused to take back the formatted phone sets from which several of our story videos were deleted,” said a local journalist present on the spot.
The abuse and beating of the scribes can be clearly seen and heard in a video of the incident which has gone viral on social media.
Media resentment
The injured journalists were initially admitted at the town’s government hospital, but were later referred to the bigger government hospital at Mayaganj. “We will lodge an FIR against the JD-U MP and his men with the medical injury reports,” said the local journalist from the news channel. “There is huge resentment among journalists of Bhagalpur after the incident and a large number of them were present in Mayaganj hospital on Wednesday evening demanding strict action against the barbaric MP,” another journalist told The Hindu.
When the two-time Bhagalpur JD-U MP was contacted on his official number by this correspondent, the man on phone quipped, “MP saheb is in field and cannot talk to you right now”, before cutting the connection. Bhagalpur MP Mr. Mandal has also been a three-time MLA in the State Assembly. The Tilkamanjhi police in-charge said, “The journalists refused to take back their mobile phones and no FIR has been lodged yet on the incident.”
‘Condemnable act’
The Congress MLA from Bhagalpur, Ajit Sharma, who is also the party’s leader in the State Assembly, asked the CM to take action against the JD(U) MP. “This incident has ashamed the country’s MPs and MLAs. The Chief Minister keeps ranting about good governance in the State, and I request CM Nitish Kumar to take stern action against his party’s MP for his condemnable act against media persons. I’ve seen the video in which [the journalists] are brutally abused and thrashed,” he said.
The Chief Minister is currently on a Pragati Yatra, and will be in Katihar on January 30. The fourth phase of his yatra is scheduled to begin in Bhagalpur from February 1. He is scheduled to cover seven districts during this phase from February 1 to 11.
