Zee TV news crew assaulted, camera stolen in Pune

The Loni Kalbhor police on Saturday arrested two persons and detained five other youths for allegedly assaulting three staff members of Zee 24-Taas news channel on Friday evening in Dive Ghat area, on the outskirts of the city.

The miscreants had also snatched the camera from the team.

Kailash Baban Puri (30), a reporter with the channel, lodged a first information report, based on which the police charged suspects under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code for assault, dacoity, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and wrongful restraint.

The suspects have been identified as Tushar Namdev Hambir (23) of Hadapsar and Yogesh Maruti Satav (24) of Wagholi. On Saturday the duo was produced before the judicial magistrate (first class) in Shivajinagar, where they were remanded in police custody till Monday.

The Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ) has condemned the incident and requested the Pune (rural) superintendent of police, Pratap Dighavkar, to take stringent action against the culprits.

According to Puri he, along with cameraman Nikhil Karandikar and driver Mangesh Deshmukh, had gone to Jejuri to cover an event. While returning to Pune along Dive Ghat, the team found that a car had hit three to four vehicles and had turned turtle at Wadki village.

To inquire about the incident, Nikhil got out of the car with his camera. “Around 10-12 unknown persons approached Nikhil and prevented him from shooting. Soon they started abusing and beating him. They also snatched his camera and broke his cellphone handset,” he said.

When Puri and the driver intervened to rescue Nikhil, they were also abused by the youths, who were in the car that hit other vehicles. “We noticed that the car didn’t even have a number plate and the persons travelling in the car were in an inebriated state.  We managed to get out from there and went to Uruli police chowky and narrated the incident,” Puri added.

The Zee 24-Taas team returned to the spot with two constables to get the camera back. They arrested two youths who allegedly assaulted Nikhil, but were unable to find the camera.

While returning from the spot the crew was stopped in Wadli nala by some
motorcycle-borne youths, who assaulted the crew. “We managed to flee from there and reached the police station,” Puri said.