The alleged brutal assault of two Muslim women journalists inside Delhi’s Saket police station has triggered widespread condemnation across the country and drawn national and international attention, putting the Delhi Police under intense scrutiny over allegations of custodial violence, religious discrimination and attack on press freedom.
Journalists Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan, sisters and colleagues working with digital news platform 4PM News Network, allege that they were ‘kidnapped’ on Sep. 3 while covering the inauguration of Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital in Saket, an event attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.What they say began as ‘detention’ following their attempt to ask questions at a public event allegedly turned into hours of intimidation, physical assault and threats inside the police station.The most disturbing allegation is that the violence intensified after police personnel allegedly discovered that the two women were Muslims.
Narrating the harrowing graphic details of their ordeal, Shaheen, the elder sister, told Radiance that a policewoman, after seeing the name of an incoming caller on her confiscated phone, realised her religious identity and allegedly said: “Oh, you are a Muslim. Then I will hit you with four more baton blows and slap you four more times.”
Afterward, they were allegedly slapped, kicked, punched, dragged by their hair and clothes and beaten with a baton. They also allege that they were denied an immediate medico-legal examination.
The Delhi Police has denied the allegations of assault, maintaining that the journalists were detained after allegedly blocking an exit, parking their scooter on a VVIP movement route and having an altercation with police personnel deployed at the venue.The sharply conflicting versions have made an independent investigation and preservation of CCTV footage central to the controversy.
‘I Could Not Breathe’
“I could not breathe. We were brutally dragged up the stairs. I kept saying, ‘Please stop, let me breathe. Tell me where you are taking me.’ But they did not tell us anything.”That is how Shaheen Khan described what she says was the most terrifying part of her ordeal inside Saket police station.
The alleged assault did not, according to her account, begin immediately after the two women arrived at the police station. Shaheen said they were initially threatened with an FIR and being placed in the lock-up.She and Nafisa repeatedly asked police personnel what offence they had committed.“We kept asking them to tell us what our crime was, what we had done wrong, why they wanted to keep us in the lock-up and why they wanted to file an FIR against us,” Shaheen said.The women told police that they were willing to cooperate and answer any questions.Instead, according to Shaheen, they were told to be placed in the lock-up.
Until that point, she said, she believed the detention might be routine. “We had been told that they were taking us home. But when we were brought to the police station, some police officers began threatening us,” she said.She then became concerned enough to inform her family.
The Confiscated Phones
After the SHO threatened them, she attempted to contact her family while scrolling through her phone.A woman in civilian clothes, wearing a pink suit, allegedly approached her and demanded the phone. Shaheen identified her as Sonam Solanki.
She said she questioned the demand and asked what law authorised the seizure of her phone. Solanki allegedly told them to come upstairs because she wanted to speak to her.Shaheen said she asked why the conversation could not take place in the reception area. The response, she alleged, was: “I have to talk to you. My way of talking is very different.”
The sisters continued asking to call their families. It was at that stage, Shaheen alleged, that their phones were snatched.“The moment they snatched our phone, she began slapping us repeatedly,” she said.The alleged assault, according to Shaheen, initially took place in the reception area, where CCTV cameras were installed.She has therefore repeatedly demanded that the footage be preserved and examined.“If the CCTV footage has not been tampered with, all of this should be recorded,” she said.
“We kept asking, ‘Why are you hitting us? What have we done? You cannot hit us. We have committed no crime, and even if you believe we have committed a crime, you do not have the right to beat us’,” Nafisa recalled.
Dragged Upstairs
Shaheen alleges that the situation then became more violent.She said Solanki dragged the sisters towards an upstairs room, pulling them by their hair and clothes.Shaheen managed to break free and rushed into the SHO’s room, hoping that a senior officer would intervene.“I asked the SHO what we had done wrong. I told him, ‘Under what authority is she beating us? Please intervene’,” she said.However, the SHO did not stop the alleged assault. Instead, she alleged, he instructed a constable to take the women upstairs and ‘teach them a lesson’.Shaheen said she was forcibly dragged upstairs.“They beat us and dragged us by whatever they could grab – our hair, our clothes,” she alleged.
She said she struggled to breathe as she was pulled up the stairs. “I could not walk; I could not breathe properly. I kept saying, ‘Please stop, let me breathe. Tell me where you are taking me.’ But they did not tell us anything.”
The room where the women were allegedly taken did not have CCTV cameras, according to Shaheen. Inside the room, she alleges, the assault escalated.“They threw me to the floor. They kicked me, punched me and slapped me repeatedly,” she said. A baton was allegedly brought into the room.Shaheen said the officer told her: “I will show you. You ask too many questions.” According to her account, the baton was used against both her and Nafisa.
At one stage, she said, the officer sat down at a table after allegedly beating them. It was then that Shaheen’s confiscated phone rang.
‘Oh, You Are a Muslim!’
“When she looked at my phone, there was an incoming call from someone named Mohammad Khan. The moment she saw the name, there was a complete change in her demeanour,” Shaheen said.She alleged that the officer immediately said: “Oh, you are a Muslim! Then I will hit you with four more baton blows and slap you four more times.”
Shaheen alleges that the officer then resumed hitting her and instructed a constable to assault the sisters.“All of them then started beating us, including people who had stood still until then,” she alleged.
The alleged religious remark has become the most explosive element of the case.“They beat us so badly that I could not breathe. I needed water and told them, ‘At least give me some water’,” she said.She broke down while recounting the episode.
The women have also alleged that the beating lasted for roughly 30 to 40 minutes and involved slapping, kicking, hair-pulling and baton blows.
Nafisa’sCondition
The condition of Nafisa after the alleged assault added another disturbing dimension to the controversy.A video recorded from inside the police station showed Shaheen visibly distressed and close to tears while describing the alleged assault.When she and the cameraperson entered a side room, Nafisa was seen sitting on a sofa, being consoled by another woman. She appeared to be in considerable pain.Images and videos circulated on social media later showed Nafisa apparently unable to walk and being carried out of the police station by people known to her.
Another video showed her lying unconscious on the floor of the police station.Photographs circulated after the incident also showed alleged bruising on Nafisa’s leg and Shaheen’s upper arm.
In another video recorded from the police station, Shaheen directly addressed police personnel.“After assaulting us mentally, physically, they ask my name, and I say I am a Khan, my name has ‘Khan’ in it, and that is why Delhi Police officers have assaulted us, beaten us with sticks, slapped us,” she said.
“In the name of ‘Musalman’, the kind of hatred inflicted on us today, Delhi Police, you will have to answer for it,” Shaheen said.‘Even if I committed a crime, there is law.’Shaheen has strongly disputed the police account of why the women were detained.
Both sisters, who have exemplary courage at the police station told Radiance that despite being brutally beaten up, the attacks on their religious identity gave them enormous courage to confront the police personnel.
In its defence, the police said that the journalists allegedly blocked the exit, parked their scooter on the VVIP movement route and had an altercation with police personnel at the venue.Shaheen rejected the justification.“Even if we assume that I had committed a crime, under which provision of law and under what procedure were we detained, assaulted, locked inside a room and had our phones snatched?” she asked.
“Whatever I may have done, you could have registered an FIR against me and taken legal action. You could have prosecuted me according to the law. I would have cooperated with you.”
Even if the police version of events at the hospital is accepted, it does not by itself resolve the allegations concerning what happened after the women reached the police station.Shaheen maintains that the immediate trigger was their journalistic work.She said she and Nafisa were covering the hospital inauguration and preparing a short video report in which they raised questions about government priorities.
“I did not question anybody there directly. I was simply shooting my segment, in which I raised a few basic questions,” she said.The approximately two-minute segment questioned why elected leaders were devoting considerable attention to the inauguration of a private hospital while public healthcare, women’s safety and law and order remained pressing issues.
“This was a barely two-minute video,” Shaheen said, adding that the report showed the venue and its surroundings, which had been specially decorated for the event.
MLC Allegedly Delayed
The handling of the journalists after the alleged assault has also come under scrutiny.Shaheen and Nafisa told Radiance that the police did not arrange an immediate medico-legal examination.Instead, they allege, police personnel sought a compromise.
“After the assault, they did not arrange an MLC. They wanted us to compromise and suppress the entire matter. We then called the police ourselves on 100 and went for the MLC on our own,” Shaheen said.They allege that they were then kept waiting until around 4 am without an FIR being registered.The question is why a complaint concerning alleged physical assault by police personnel was not immediately dealt with through the ordinary legal process.
The Delhi Police has rejected the allegations.DCP South Delhi described them on X as ‘factually incorrect and misleading’. The post was subsequently deleted.The deletion has itself generated questions.Shaheen questioned why the statement was removed if the police version was correct.
The demand for CCTV footage has consequently become the most important immediate test of the investigation.The journalists have demanded that all available footage be preserved.The demand has been echoed by several journalist organisations and civil-liberties groups.
Press Freedom Concerns
The incident has also raised a wider question about the safety of journalists, particularly women journalists, while covering politically sensitive events.The Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association, Kerala Union of Working Journalists, Network of Women in Media India and the Editors Guild of India have condemned the alleged assault and called for an independent investigation and accountability if they are substantiated.
The organisations have demanded preservation of CCTV footage and action against police personnel found responsible.Digipub also said journalists must be able to perform their professional duties without fear, intimidation or discrimination.They also called for punitive action against Delhi Police officials posted at Saket Police Station, including the SHO.Sanjay Sharma, editor-in-chief of 4PM News Network, also questioned whether the alleged action could be linked to the platform’s recent reporting on the Delhi government and Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.
“In recent days, 4PM has consistently raised serious questions and published reports on matters concerning the Delhi government and Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. In such a context, it is natural to wonder whether today’s action is connected in any way to those reports and questions,” Sharma said while sharing the journalists’ video report from the police station.
Allegation of Religious Targeting
The religious dimension has given the case a significance extending beyond a dispute between journalists and police.The allegation that the assault became more severe after Shaheen’s Muslim identity was allegedly recognised has been repeated in her written statement and interviews with multiple media outlets.
The Network of Women in Media, India and the Editors Guild have also referred to the allegations of religion-based abuse.
Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee General Secretary Lateef Mohammed Khan said the reported communal remark, “Muslim hai, do dande aur maro,” was deeply disturbing and raised serious concerns over discriminatory conduct, abuse of police authority and violations of constitutional guarantees of equality and freedom of the press.
Echoing these concerns, National Women’s Wing Convenor and party National General Secretary Sheema Mohsin said the growing hatred and intolerance against Muslims in the country was already a matter of serious concern.
JIH National Secretary Rahamathunnisa A., who visited the homes of Nafisa and Shaheen, also described the alleged attack as not only an assault on the personal dignity of the women but as raising serious concerns about Islamophobia and religiously discriminatory treatment by the Delhi Police, which falls under the Union Home Ministry.
A delegation of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind visited the homes of the journalists and assured them of all possible legal assistance, saying that no alleged breach of security protocol could justify custodial violence or discriminatory treatment.
Congress leader Alka Lamba similarly demanded an investigation, an MLC and an FIR, and said the relevant CCTV footage should be made public.
As both the victims sum up their ordeal on these words: “A police station should be a citizen’s safest refuge,” but the alleged treatment of even journalists laid bare what they called the police’s “brutal, inhuman and deeply disturbing face.”